


Here to Mars

by zombiekittiez



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Again, Angst, Curtains but he’s not important, Dark Humor, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, In later chapters - Freeform, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Paladin Bonding, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Past Allura/Lance (Voltron), Pining, Post Season 8, Serious Illness, Space: The Final Frontier, Suggestive Themes, more or less, serious themes, shiro centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:22:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22873948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiekittiez/pseuds/zombiekittiez
Summary: The worst part about sleeping for six years straight while someone else lives your life isn’t coming back, actually. It’s coming back sick.All the alien magic in the universe and Shiro’s muscles still ache and shake and freeze up on him. He’d used up the last of his good days on that mission and that time in the arena, just like he’d known he would. The Doc tries things out, here and there. Gravity treatments. Weird glowing injections. She’s working on nanobots, but she’s not quite there yet. On The Station, he’s doing better for longer than he’d ever hoped, but-He’s still dying.So.There’s that.~~Or The Belated Ballad of Takashi Shirogane; wherein he wakes up six years late.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 127
Kudos: 165





	1. Hey Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why am I so late to every fandom, why do I have to start a new ongoing the second I wrap one up why why why

Thing is, Shiro never really thought of himself as a _Takashi_ kind of guy. His parents had called him that, sure, but his parents had him late in life before retiring back to good ol’ Japan. Aside from a monthly vidcall, he didn’t hear his first name much. Didn’t hear it much during those calls, either, if he’s being honest- they’d never quite forgiven him for Adam, anyway. Afterward, his decision to use the rest of his time on the Kerberos mission seemed like a win-win situation. He’d broken up with Adam- and he’d have the good grace to go out a hero, a space pioneer. Surely the Garrison textbook footnote with his name *asterisk* would forget to mention the dishonor of his _gay._ His parents would be so proud. 

Names are important, the Doc tells him. Pidge. Katie. Kathleen. Lieutenant Commander Holt. Doc. It’s nice not having to be the same person to everyone all the time. She goes through names like clean clothes, switching to fit each occasion. He’s impressed by her diplomacy. When he tells her that, she laughs at him till she snorts with it. 

“Who do you think I learned that from?” she asks. 

He shrugs. “Not me,” he says. 

~~

She’d found him in a little lab on a space station, outside of KK-189. Totally uninhabited except for small rabbity creatures that had the unfortunate habit of kamikaze-ing any perceived threat with highly concentrated acid blood and spit. Annoying, detrimental to ship integrity, and bad for morale. If it weren’t for one suspiciously large shipment of quintessence that the Doc had traced backwards from Honerva’s lab notes, maybe no one would have ever found it. Him. Whatever. 

It bothers him less than it should, that. 

The Doc explains that it was pure conjecture that brought her out that way. An intellectual exercise, one-in-a-million chance. 

“It’s just that it never made any sense. The whole clone thing,” she explains one late night foray into the kitchens. She’s eating peanut butter, slathering it on bright orange Cheez-It crackers, and it’s horrifying. What even is this food combination. He can’t look away. “I mean, _why?_ And why fuck you up like that in the first place?”

“Not me,” he reminds her, but she’s on a roll and just waves a hand dismissively. 

“You know what I mean. What if it was irreversible? The whole purpose of an experiment is to _replicate._ She was treating her test subjects like matchbox cars.” 

Shiro watches with trepidation as she runs low on Cheez-Its. Her wandering eyes skim the cabinets and he hopes to god she doesn’t find the Puffy Cheetohs he has stashed away under the sink. He _likes_ those, and watching her goop on crunchy peanut butter will kill off one of the few good constants in his life. 

“I don’t see how that led you to me,” he tries to distract her. No dice. She goes digging under the sink and he muffles a groan of dismay. 

“Easy,” she says, waving a Cheetoh in the air in triumph. “The first step before making any major changes to a system is to preserve the original program.”

~~

These are the facts: 

Takashi Shirogane had been selected to pilot the Kerberos mission.

Shiro and the rest of his three man crew became victims of an alien abduction; an unfortunate coincidence when the Galra spotted their ship on the hunt for some mystical weapon called Voltron. 

Sam Holt, older and more frail, was sent off to a work camp while Shiro and Matt ended up in the arena. 

In order to spare Matt, Shiro injured him slightly. He only had a split second to make the choice. The injury would disqualify Matt, would throw off the whole Galra betting system, from what Shiro had picked up eavesdropping in his cell. He’d just had to hope that they wouldn’t kill Matt outright. He’d taken a gamble and it had paid off. Shiro was clever and careful and he had beaten Myzax and Matt had survived. 

Shiro had been taken to Haggar’s lab after being declared Champion. 

Shiro had woken up in Doc’s lap. 

Some things had happened in between those last two things, but that’s not his story. That’s some other Shiro now. 

He didn’t want to believe the Doc when she’d told him the whole thing. Paladins and magical spaceships and clones and _robotic arms, what the fuck._ But there were pictures, so. 

His wedding had looked nice. Curtis seems like a good guy. A little goofy and milquetoast, maybe. Probably not the type of guy Shiro had seen himself with long term, but hell. He hadn’t been thinking _long-term_ anything. 

The worst part about sleeping for six years straight while someone else lives your life isn’t coming back, actually. It’s coming back sick. 

All the alien magic in the universe and Shiro’s muscles still ache and shake and freeze up on him. He’d used up the last of his good days on that mission and in the arena, just like he’d known he would. The Doc tries things out, here and there. Gravity treatments. Weird glowing injections. She’s working on nanobots, but she’s not quite there yet. On The Station, he’s doing better for longer than he’d ever hoped, but-

He’s still dying. 

So. 

There’s that. 

“You don’t want to tell _anyone?_ ” She presses. “Not even Keith?” 

His parents went to the wedding. They look proud and happy in the pictures. If he’d known making Admiral and faking his own death would have gotten them to be okay with his sucking dick, maybe he’d have done it sooner. 

Everyone is happier with that Shiro, from what he can tell. That Shiro has an old-man garden and grows too many zucchinis with his boring-ass husband and goes to brunch after antiquing. This Shiro has both arms and eyes full of stars he can’t get to, stuck in a body that’s betraying him. 

Hey, Keith, it’s me, best friend. Bet you feel dumb for never noticing you had the wrong me! Want to reminisce a bit before I die on you for real this time? 

“Definitely not Keith,” Shiro says firmly.  
~~

Shiro has one good reason and one selfish reason not to go planet-side. 

Interrupting his treatments for a week or two to go sight-seeing isn’t... great. Even with the portable solutions the Doc puts together, it’s risky. He also doesn’t mention the fact that while he doesn’t begrudge that Shiro from living his best Shiro life, he doesn’t want to have to watch that shit either. 

The Doc promises to bring him back a crate of Cheetohs this time. She doesn’t have to go, not really- but she doesn’t like leaving Lance alone too long. He gets too in his own head, she explains. Sad farmer schtick. There’s room on the farm for her assistant. She dangles it over him like a doggy treat, but she doesn’t seem shocked when he shakes his head no. 

“He’d love you,” she tells Shiro. “Even if you weren’t… you. Maybe too much, actually. Pretty much everybody was half in love with you at the Garrison.”

“You too?” he asks, unable to help himself. 

“Nope! Too smart, cool and gay for me, my guy. I’m strictly moronsexual.” She smiles a little private smile and heads to the shuttle. “Try not to die while I’m gone,” she calls over her shoulder. 

“No promises,” Shiro answers with a wave. 

~~

Shiro hadn’t really ever had time for hobbies. Hoverbikes, sure, and gym stuff and nerding out over space, but. He’d had a goal and then he’d hit it and then he’d been Han Solo in carbonite on a lost space lab for six years. 

The Doc will be gone for a month unless there’s an emergency, and since The Station is her private lab space, Shiro has the place to himself. He figures this is the perfect time to find one he likes before he’s completely immobilized. Gotta find something to pass the time while waiting for his respiratory system to fail. Shiro sets up Rover VIII to follow him around playing music in playlists divided by planet of origin and mood. He tries knitting first but the tiny purls snag on his big dumb meat hands until he gives up, wadding the yupper yarn into a ball and stuffing it into the couch cushions for future Shiro. Or the Doc, should he die before he remembers to toss it. _Win-win._

Painting is also a bust. His landscape is so awful that he can’t stand looking at it long enough to finish properly. Eventually, he foregoes the brush and devolves into messy finger painting. Shiro drags his index finger through the mess until it makes a uniform greyish lavender. He draws a wobbly lion face in the sky. It’s frowning. 

“Me too, buddy,” he tells it. He hangs that one up in his room. He writes his name and _Self Portrait of a Dead Lion_ on the back of it. He’s beyond pretending he’s not a little obsessed. 

He just can’t imagine a him that has a body- a healthy not-dying body- who is happy just sitting on Earth and doing _nothing._ What a waste. 

“That’s not fair,” the Doc says when she vidcalls to check in and bears the brunt of his bitterness. “It was so much, you know? You _died._ ”

I’m dying now, he doesn’t say. 

“I’m saying that you earned it. Peace and stability, I mean. You lost parts of yourself out there. And I know we didn’t make it easy on you.”

“Being Space-Dad for four to five teenage heroes is actually the least believable part of this for me,” Shiro confesses. He’d killed a succulent once and those suckers are practically immortal. 

“You had Keith,” the Doc points out. “Before.” 

“Keith was easy,” Shiro says dismissively. “He wasn’t like other kids. He didn’t need as much.” 

“So you say,” she responds dubiously. “But he was just as hot-headed, competative and stupid as the rest of us.” 

“Dumb enough for you?” Shiro asks, only half teasing. 

“Almost,” the Doc answers and Shiro decides not to go anywhere _near_ that can of worms. 

“That’s just Keith, though, isn’t it?” Shiro asks instead. “Maybe it came up more often because he was young, but he was always going to be…” Impulsive and reckless and infuriatingly talented. And perfect. Whatever Shiro’s face does, the Doc softens when she sees it. 

“I really wish you’d let me tell him,” she says, but she doesn’t push it. 

Which is fine, because she doesn’t have to. 

Chess, Mah-jong, Sudoku, Crossword. Shiro sucks so badly that the computer sim powers _itself_ off. 

Then he finds a gross of eggs in the back of the deep-freezer while looking for ice cream. They must be left over from the New Defenders visit months ago. The shells are a bit more chartreuse than the usual Earth egg, but the expiration date is far enough away that Shiro is willing to take his chances. 

“Am I still a bad cook?” He asks the Doc casually during their next call. 

“Literally the worst,” she agrees. “Curtis banned you from the kitchen. You have to stay behind the yellow line and everything.” 

Fine. He’s tired of the freeze-dried astronaut food anyway. Insta-peas had lost their charm halfway through the Kerberos mission and no matter what anyone says about space-goo, it’s still the worst thing Shiro has ever voluntarily put into his mouth. Either he learns to cook for real this time or he gets the satisfaction of being the first person to combust a space station over earth. 

Patience yields focus, he tells himself, when his first attempt is charred. 

Third. 

Sixth. 

The fourteenth time, the scrambled eggs come out properly marbled, yellow and white. Buttery soft. He eats them straight from the pan, tears stinging his eyes while he eats and he can’t even say why, exactly. The eggs are really good, that’s all. New Shiro might have his life and his face and his name and his health, but this Shiro has something. Even if it’s just eggs.

The Doc doesn’t _say_ that she’s monitoring him or anything, but a shipment of fresh ingredients reaches The Station way too quickly for it to be a coincidence. Shiro decides not to look a gift-drone in the mouth. He rolls up his sleeve and looks up recipe after recipe on the tablet. 

Two weeks later, Shiro is pulling a batch of golden brown hummingbird cupcakes out of the oven, bopping side to side to a peppy Unilu mix tape that sounds suspiciously like Kpop without any vowel sounds. He’s wearing a lab apron because that’s what the Doc keeps around, one hand in an oven mitt on the cupcake pan, the other held up like a microphone, eyes closed, head back, howling along as best he can- 

The music cuts off mid-word and Shiro’s eyes fly open. 

“Hey,” Keith says, leaning against the doorway in easy amusement, index finger still on Rover VIII's pause button. 

Shiro drops the cupcake pan. It never hits the ground. Keith is in the doorway, and then he isn’t, casually catching the hot pan in one hand and sliding it onto the nearest counter in one smooth motion. He even manages to get a potholder under it so it won’t scorch the countertop. 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” Keith says casually, straightening up like he hadn’t just done some impressive martial arts moves half across the room. He’s taller and his shoulders are broad, and they’re nearly eye-to-eye this close. He flicks his long braid back behind one shoulder. A beat. 

Shiro knew, theoretically, that six years has passed from his cryogenic sleep. He had heard about the quantum rift and the space whale and Galra ninja Blade training. He had even seen pictures, though the long haired stranger lurking in the background, head always ducked down or turned away or slightly blurry had never been front and center. Keith would never be front and center at someone else’s wedding. 

But Shiro’s last memory of Keith is at the launch, freshly seventeen. In another life, maybe, they would have flown together on a mission like Kerberos. If he’d been born a little later, or if Keith had been born a little sooner. In this life, Shiro was going to be a footnote in a textbook. Keith was going to be a whole chapter. 

So it’s one thing to know, hypothetically, that Shiro’s protege had grown up. It was quite another to see twenty six year old Keith in person. It occurs to him that Keith, who had always been a good looking kid, has turned into a fucking knockout. 

Keith flexes his hand almost imperceptibly but Shiro notices because he’s staring like he’s never seen a hot guy before in his life, _get it together, soldier._

“You’ve hurt yourself,” Shiro steps forward, reaching out. Keith twists just slightly out of reach and this reminds him that they are strangers now. How awful. But Keith doesn’t look upset, at least. 

“I’ve had worse,” Keith says, looking down at his hand wryly. “The cupcakes are more important. What kind are they?” He prods, sounding hopeful. 

“Hummingbird cake with cream cheese frosting,” Shiro says. He starts to pluck the cupcakes from the pan, lining them up on the cooling racks. 

“Banana?” Keith makes a face. 

“You can’t tell,” Shiro assures him. 

“That’s what everyone who likes banana says,” Keith says darkly. He watches Shiro mix up the cream cheese buttercream. 

“I thought the place would be empty,” Keith says, when the hand mixer noise dies down. “I forgot about you.” 

“You know about me?” Shiro asks. It’s a weird feeling, just for a moment. Butterflies. 

“Sure.” Keith bobs his head, swiping a finger through the beater to steal some frosting. “Pidge said she got a new assistant.” 

The Station is the Doc’s private lab, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely isolated. Defenders come and go sometimes and Matt and the Holts come by on the regular. Shiro had wanted to go into hiding every time, but the Doc had compromised. The Nanobots weren’t ready for medical use- some nasty clotting side effects, supposedly. But they did work nicely externally to project a constant, shifting, realistic facial reconfiguration program. Shiro had picked a face with a softer jawline, a more recessed chin. Plain. Forgettable. 

“That’s me,” Shiro says lightly. “Want a cupcake?” 

Keith eats one, eyebrows raising. “Can’t even taste the banana,” he marvels, grabbing a second one. Shiro preens. “I’m Keith, by the way. I’m sure Pidge mentioned me at some point. What should I call you?” 

“...Ta...ke,” Shiro says after a slight pause. “You can call me Take. It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Likewise.” 

“The Doc won’t be back for another week,” Shiro explains, cleaning up the kitchen automatically. 

“I know, she’s with Lance.” He’s eyeing another cupcake. 

“You aren’t going to meet them?” Shiro asks. Keith looks up. Was that too personal? Shiro slides him a third cupcake. 

“I don’t like to interrupt. I’ll go planetside after she comes back,” Keith explains, mollified. 

“This might be weird to ask, but... “ 

“Shoot.” Keith’s posture is relaxed. He probably thinks it’s a Paladin question. Well. It kind of is. 

“Would you say that Lance is a moron?” Shiro asks politely. 

“Lance was my right hand and a dual pilot,” Keith says seriously. “He was our sharpshooter and our plan guy. I trust him with my life.” 

“That so?” 

“Oh yeah. He is _also_ a fucking moron, though.” Keith adds, tossing the cupcake wrappers into the trash. “You got room for me to crash around here, or am I sleeping in my ship?” 

~~

“It’s gonna be at least a week till I get back up there,” the Doc says suspiciously. “He knows this. Why’s he there so early?” 

Shiro shrugs, glancing back over his shoulder nervously. Which is stupid. These are his private quarters and the door is shut and the walls are soundproofed. 

“Beats me. You know Keith and questions he doesn’t feel like answering.” 

The Doc rolls her eyes. “I’m aware. Never really grew out of the emo glare leave-me-alone phase.” 

Shiro blinks, surprised. Actually… that didn’t ring a bell at all. Keith hadn’t been exactly _forthcoming_ with what he was doing at The Station or why, but he hadn’t been guarded and cold, either. He’d dodged any direct question more complicated than what to have for dinner, but he’d done so with an easy sort of amusement and a smile. He’d figured this was just a New Grown Up Hot Keith thing. When Shiro explains this, the Doc adjusts her glasses in a way that catches the light suspiciously. 

“Interesting,” she says. 

“Assist extrapolation,” Shiro requests dryly. 

“Weeeell…” she has the good grace to look slightly abashed. “I didn’t get those Anti-Grav pods from Santa Claus.”

“They’re Galran,” he hazards a guess. 

“Training equipment. Pretty universal stuff, from what I hear, but I needed one for smaller builds. Keith wanted to know why I needed the equivalent of a toddler Bowflex.” 

“So you told him about me,” Shiro realizes. 

“Not _everything._ Just the general sort of thing.”

“That I’m sick.” It should upset Shiro, probably. Something about it feels off, though. Keith hadn’t acted sorry for him or anything, it was different. Familiar, though. Kind of like…

“Wait. What else did you say about me?” Shiro interrupts himself. The Doc squirms. 

“He was worried about me! I told him I’ve got Matt, I don’t need another big brother and you know what he said? ‘Matt doesn’t know how to disembowel someone in sixty seconds with a car key.’” Shiro lets out a low whistle. “Which, barbaric. But also I figured it was in our best interests to avoid the shovel talk. Since _somebody_ won’t let me just out with the truth already.” Shiro ignored the jab. “I might have mentioned you weren’t a threat to my person or my dubious virtue. That might have involved explaining that you’re ex-Garrison, gay, and sick besides. Sound familiar?” 

“He’s being nice to me because he’s waxing nostalgic,” Shiro groans. 

“Turns out you remind him of someone. You know. _You._ Fancy that.” The Doc’s voice is wholly unsympathetic. “It’s a perfect set up, really. You have a get-out-of-jail free card past classic Keith detachment disorder _without_ any messy complications like honesty.” 

“Not pulling your punches today, huh?” Shiro grumbles under his breath. 

“You better believe it, buddy.” The Doc tilts her head to the side thoughtfully. “I am actually glad. I don’t like leaving anyone alone for so long up there. Space is beautiful, but it can also be lonely and creepy.” 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Shiro reminds her not unkindly. 

“No,” she agrees. “But Keith might.” Her tone is knowing. 

“Is he okay?” Shiro asks, straightening. 

“Mm. I’ve heard some things, here and there,” the Doc hedges. “But you two are _bonding_ now, so why don’t you ask nicely?” 

“I asked why he doesn’t just go down and meet you both,” Shiro changes the subject. The Doc quirks an eyebrow to let him know that she’s noticed and then lets motions for him to continue. “He said he didn’t want to... interrupt.” 

The Doc rolls her eyes but Shiro notices that she doesn’t quite make eye contact afterwards. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says loftily. 

~~~

Shiro’s routine is flexible, but it is a routine regardless. He goes through his day per usual, performing routine maintenance checks between treatment cycles, rehab exercises, and kitchen time. Shiro is proud of himself for not flinching whenever he looks up and sees an unfamiliar shadow lurking nearby. Keith is like an overgrown house cat, slinking in and out of rooms silently. His air of nonchalance, arms crossed over his (very nice) chest, is a thin veneer that Shiro knows masks a mild, steady curiosity. Literally nothing good has ever come from Keith indulging his curiosity, either Before Kerberos, or, from what he hears, afterward. So Shiro keeps his head down over the stove while he works. Breakfast for dinner, he decides. It’s what he’s most comfortable with, anyway. Keith, lulled by his quiet and steady pace, creeps closer, till Shiro can see him out of the corner of one eye. 

“That’s a lot of eggs,” Keith says finally. 

“I figured you’d be hungry for something other than space goo,” Shiro says. He covers the scrambled eggs with a pot lid to keep them warm while he pours a thin stream of batter onto another hot griddle. When the mixture bubbles up nicely, he flips it. A perfect golden brown pancake. 

Keith doesn’t say anything else, not till Shiro sets down servings for two. Shiro settles into one chair and gets to work. It had been hammered into him, at a young age, to wait politely for guests to take the first bite- but a decade at the Garrison had drained such niceties out of him. No, Keith is more likely to sit and eat and participate in this human social interaction if there is zero pressure from any side. 

Keith sits. Shiro takes an extra large bite in order to keep his expression from sliding into _unbearably smug._

Keith picks up a fork but he doesn’t eat right away. He’s looking over the plate with an odd sort of expression- one that Shiro could probably have identified five or so years ago, but his adult features are harder to parse. 

“Scrambled eggs were the first thing I learned to cook,” Shiro offers. A little piece of himself. “Without the Doc around, it’s all space goo or starve.” 

“You didn’t cook before?” Keith asks politely. 

“It didn’t seem important. I had other things I was chasing.” Shiro smiles a little. “In a weird way, I could say I have more time now, for things like that. Even if it’s temporary. Sorry. I didn’t even ask if you liked them.” 

Keith reaches for the maple syrup. He stares at the label longer than it should take to read. Shiro doesn’t know a lot about food, but he does know that high grade genuine maple syrup is expensive, doubly so after the Galra invasion. 

“When you don’t have money,” Keith says quietly, pouring on the syrup in a careful stream, “ _really_ don’t have money, you still have to eat. It means you eat the same things, over and over. It’s not important at the time, you’re getting by. You can make some pretty decent tasting food on a budget.” Keith starts cutting up his pancakes into small, even bites. “You eat a lot of spaghetti and stuff. Get sick of it, when you don’t have to eat it anymore… but it’s been years, probably, since I’ve had it. I’d probably like it.” 

Shiro knows that eggs are cheap. So are pancakes. 

“Do you like it?” Shiro asks gently, after Keith goes blank, staring down at the plate. Prompted, Keith takes a bite of the eggs. He closes his eyes while he chews, brows slightly creased. He swallows. He smiles. “Yeah,” he says agreeably. “I like it. You did good, Take.” 

Shiro has always liked when Keith makes that face at him, like Shiro is doing something warm and wonderful. He basks in it. 

“Can I ask you something?” Keith says abruptly, halfway through his breakfast. 

“Sure.”

“Why do you call Pidge ‘the Doc?’” 

Shiro grins. “Oh, you’re going to love this. Hang on a bit, it’s easier to show you.” 

After dinner, Keith washes and Shiro puts the dishes away. Once everything is clean, Shiro takes him to The Inner Sanctum. 

“Ta-dah!” Shiro throws open the door. 

“This is a closet,” Keith sounds unimpressed. So it is, tucked away unobtrusively in a corridor off the hangar. It’s stacked high with closed cardboard boxes. 

“Open one,” Shiro suggests. 

Keith kneels and pulls back the flap of one box. Inside, there are neat papers in neat stacks. Some are framed or tucked inside of stiff cardboard placeholders. “These are diplomas.” He looks up at Shiro from under his bangs. “I don’t get it.” 

“Assist extrapolation?” 

“What?”

“Sorry. Inside joke.” Shiro grins. “After the Paladins of Voltron emancipated Earth and saved the Universe, every agency and organization was scrambling to milk any and all associations.” 

“Tell me about it,” Keith rolled his eyes. “The irony of trying to rename a high school after me where I’d been suspended three times.” 

Shiro snickers. That school had been such an uptight waste of space. “And you weren’t even here,” he points out. 

“Shiro’s a Garrison boy, through and through,” Keith says casually, turning back to the box, which is good because Shiro’s not sure what expression he’s wearing at that, _ouch._ “And Lance is retired and Hunk was out in space with me, so…” 

“Exactly. Every major accredited institute of higher learning was scrambling to add her to their alumni and associates list. Hence…” Shiro gestures. 

“Oh my god.” Keith rocks back on his heels. “These are _all_ honorary degrees. How many…?”

“Two thousand three hundred and twenty three,” Shiro says with great relish. “And those are just the doctorates, she shreds anything lower.” 

“Doc.” Keith whistles long and low. He looks like a kid on Christmas. Shiro’s watch beeps. The Anti-Grav pod is just about warmed up, and it always wipes him out enough that he usually goes straight to bed afterwards, to writhe and ache. To sleep, eventually, even if it takes hours. Shiro excuses himself with a pained smile. 

“Some of these were thrown together pretty last minute,” Shiro tells Keith before leaving. “They do all kinds of crazy things to her name, and I’m not sure most of them know which Paladin she was. She’s got a couple of honorary degrees in Baking Science that I’m pretty sure were meant for the Yellow Paladin.” 

Out in the hall, once the door closes behind him, Shiro takes a deep breath to steady himself. It’s been getting harder, between the morning and evening sessions. Part of it he blames on the excitement. His new cooking hobby isn’t exactly sedentary, either. Still, Shiro and the Doc had already done the math on this, and he can’t postpone adding a third afternoon treatment cycle for much longer. 

Shiro strips down, folding his clothes neatly and putting them to the side before stepping into the pod. It’s extremely uncomfortable, pressing into his muscles by turning gravity up and down by minute degrees. He distracts himself as he always does, by trying to focus his mind elsewhere. 

Shiro is lucky. He knows he’s lucky. These treatments are no more taxing than those he’d have faced on earth a decade ago and much more effective at stalling the inevitable besides. He’d made a choice, and life had found its own way, and here he is anyway. 

It’s just human, to want more time. 

Shiro steps out of the chamber and dresses slowly, his body protesting every bend and dip. Each step feels like knives, stabbing straight up through the bottom of his feet along his skeleton and up to his spine. Business as usual. Shiro’s room is just two doors down on the right, but stubbornly he goes left. He stops at the hangar. 

Keith’s ship is repurposed Galra mini cruiser- modded to hell and back and recolored candy-apple red. It honestly looks like a hot rod and a cruise ship had a space baby. It’s gaudy and ostentatious and amazing. Shiro reaches out to skim his fingers along the side. As soon as he touches the surface, the red goes transparent. A window, heat sensitive. Two glowing yellow eyes stare back at him from the other side. Shiro takes a step backward and the eyes disappear. The ship’s window goes dark. 

“The fuck-” Shiro whispers. He takes another step back, but there’s a sudden noise and then a warm weight and he falls. He’s flat on his back in the hangar, looking up at a blue wolf roughly the size of a Shetland Pony. The wolf leans in to nose at Shiro’s neck in a friendly sort of way. Tentatively, Shiro reaches up to scratch at the wolf’s ears with his right hand. The wolf seizes Shiro’s wrist, trapping it in his mouth gently and shaking it side to side, puzzled. It occurs to Shiro that nanobots don’t influence scent one bit. This wolf has absolutely met that Shiro… and now, this one. The wolf looks him in the eye knowingly. 

“Don’t rat me out,” Shiro whispers. The wolf butts his head into Shiro’s chest and Shiro complies, scratching around the wolf’s ears vigorously. The wolf whines, pleased. 

“Hey!” Keith’s voice comes out sharp. The wolf turns its face toward him but otherwise doesn’t move. “Get off him. _Now._ ” The wolf huffs but shifts backward. Shiro doesn’t get a chance to pull himself together before Keith is hauling him up in one smooth motion. Which is. Yeah. Keith doesn’t even look put out about hauling up a guy Shiro’s size by the armpits and that sort of does it for him too. Shiro thinks the look that the wolf is giving him now is particularly unimpressed. 

“He’s not usually so forward with strangers, sorry.” Keith glares at the wolf. “You’re okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Shiro assures him. “It’s my fault for encroaching on his territory.” Keith looks lost. “I was looking at your ship,” Shiro admits. “It’s beautiful.” 

“Thanks,” Keith says wryly. “It’s my severance pay.” 

Shiro loses his chance to ask more when he shifts slightly and winces. Keith’s eyes narrow. Shiro holds up a hand. “He really didn’t hurt me. I was already like this.” 

“Do you need to lay down?” Keith asks immediately, like he’d scoop Shiro up princess-style and carry him off if asked nicely and while _isn’t that just a thought,_ Shiro shakes his head. 

“I can’t really… relax for a while.” Shiro explains. “I just try to keep my mind off things. Don’t let me keep you.” 

Keith is studying him carefully. The wolf, forgotten, slips back to Shiro’s side, leaning very slightly against him. Shiro reaches up to pet along his jaw absently. He’s always liked dogs. 

“I can do distracting,” Keith says easily. He puts a palm against the side of the ship and the ramp descends. He leads the way to the cockpit where he slides easily into the copilot’s chair. Shiro looks at the captain’s chair and stays standing, even though it hurts. 

“You need a formal written invitation?” Keith asks. “Notarized?” 

“Why are you doing this?” Shiro asks. “You don’t even know me.” 

Keith laughs, bright with surprise. “Sorry,” he waves a hand. “It’s not you, it’s… I said something like that, once.” 

Annoyance sparks and Shiro tries to shove it aside. That hadn’t been the same _at all._ “I’m sick,” Shiro says shortly. “I might wreck your ship.” 

“Not when I’m co-piloting,” Keith says with the easy arrogance of the disgustingly talented. 

“It’s an unnecessary risk,” Shiro argues, though his knees are almost buckling with the pressure. He just needs to sit down for a minute, that’s all- but if he sits, it’s a loss. Keith had to have known that when they entered; this whole situation was a set up. “I’ve never flown anything that wasn’t Garrison regulation.” 

“I told the space wolf to stay on the ship,” Keith says, apropos of nothing. “I was worried he might freak you out.” 

“Wouldn’t he be more comfortable on The Station? There’s a lot more room.” Shiro is puzzled. 

“Imagine that. All that space to move around in, staying in one little box.” His voice is oddly significant, and, okay, yeah. He gets it. 

Shiro sits. 

“Pre-flight checks initiating,” Shiro says quietly enough that there’s hardly a hitch in his voice. He reaches for the controls with shaking hands.

“Co-pilot on standby,” Keith says, pretending not to see it.

They fly. 

Shiro wakes up with the echoes of stars in his eyes, that steady low voice in his ear telling him what a good job he was doing, such a quick study. He’d fallen asleep on descent and Keith had taken over. Keith must have then carried Shiro ( _princess style?_ ) to the bed in back, covering him with a blanket and letting him sleep with the space wolf curled on the floor at his feet. 

Shiro opens his eyes and his first thought is _Keith._

Then his monitor beeps. The Anti-Grav pod awaits. 

~~

Things that Shiro knows about twenty-six year old Keith: 

Keith is handsome and righteous and dedicated. He is all the things Shiro thought he might be, one day. He talks about the humanitarian missions like he’s just making regular runs to the store for eggs and milk. Oh, single handedly evacuating a continent from natural disaster? Building alien orphanages? Crushing self appointed alien warlords and restoring peace and prosperity? All in a quintent’s work. 

Keith doesn’t even _brag._ This is just his life now, so when he talks about being the equivalent of a space cowboy turned firefighter, he worries he is boring Shiro. 

Keith is _not_ boring Shiro. 

Keith is also thoughtful and gruff, kind and endearingly awkward. He’s playful and warm and wonderful. He’s things Shiro knew he wanted and things he didn’t know he needed, all wrapped up in one person. 

Things Shiro knows about himself:

This has been the best week of Shiro’s life. Every really good week before has always been chased by shadow- the acceptance letter from the Garrison days after his disaster decision to come out of the closet, the week long honeymoon retreat with Adam after the fallout with his parents, the Kerberos mission hand in hand with the breakup. 

It has been the best week of Shiro’s life because Shiro is falling in love with Keith. 

And Shiro is still dying. 

~~


	2. A Long While

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wtf is this? actual plot? gross

The Doc comes back with little fanfare and a case full of puffy Cheetohs. There’s other stuff, too- notes from Matt for Shiro to input, some strongly worded suggestions from Garrison command they will laugh at together later before conveniently losing. Potatoes from the farm. Shiro heads into the cargo bay of her planet-hopper, a tiny green and yellow atmospheric buggy with long and flexible landing gear designed for any terrain. It looks like an oversized headless grasshopper. Keith leans against the wall, waiting patiently for her to disembark. 

“Hey, Doc,” he greets her too-casually. She eyes him with mistrust.

“I want a hug when I’ve got all the space dust off me,” she tells him sharply, elbowing past. She spares a smile for Shiro, looking a little too closely, maybe. He smiles back at a spot just above her head which doesn’t do him any favors. 

“I made dinner, once you’re freshened up,” Shiro offers. 

“Huh.” She looks between the two of them before disappearing down the hall toward her quarters. The two of them wait with baited breath. 

A wordless scream tears through the station. Rapid footsteps thunder down the hall. The space wolf quietly teleports himself onto Keith’s ship and out of the line of fire. No such luck for them. 

“Keith!” The Doc screeches, appearing in the doorway half-dressed, waving a handful of papers wildly from where she’d snatched them off the wall. It had been the better part of three days to carefully wallpaper her private quarters with the most ridiculous of the honorary diplomas. The look on her face is absolutely worth every minute. 

“What?” Keith struggles to keep a straight face, capturing one of the papers from her flailing hands. “We just thought that _Catalina Pidgeonhut_ would want to display her proud accomplishments in the field of _Egyptology._ ” She elbows him ruthlessly in the solar plexus and he staggers backward. 

“And _you!_ ” She points a finger at Shiro. “Betrayal! I literally _saved your life-_ ” Shiro is laughing and Keith is laughing and so it takes a second to register, what she’s saying- “I swear to god, Shiro-” 

“Shiro?” Keith asks. Silence. 

“...You better not tell him.” The Doc corrects with a sniff. “He’d make such a big deal out of it.” 

Keith shakes his head slowly. “He wouldn’t, Pidge. Or not like that. Honestly, Lance would be worse, I think.” 

Shiro takes a deep breath and tries to relax, to unball his fists at his side.  
“I’m going to go plate up,” he says weakly. “Don’t take too long.” 

He goes to the kitchen and leans over the sink, breathing in and out. The monitor mounted alongside the cabinets flickers to life. It’s tuned to surveillance over the hanger, zoomed in, audio cued. The Doc’s doing. He recognizes it immediately as an olive branch. She’d always traded in information. 

“-just not sure why you brought him up.” Keith finishes. 

“It’s not that deep,” the Doc evades. 

“You don’t have anything Shiro-related to talk to me about?” Keith asks skeptically. 

“Maybe I do,” she admits. “I’m just not sure it won’t turn into a fight.” Shiro steadies his breathing. She wouldn’t, he reminds himself. She’d promised. 

“You shying away from a fight? Since when?” His attempt at teasing falls flat.

“You’re the only other one of us who fights as dirty as I do,” she points out. “If you and I really went at it, they’d be mopping us off the walls for weeks.” 

“We wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, anyway. And if you did, I trust that it would be for a good reason.” Keith sounds confident. “Lay it on me.” 

“Are you going to see Shiro this time when you’re planet side?” She asks abruptly. Keith looks surprised, then angry, then pensive. He looks to the side, which is answer enough. “You can’t stick to vidcalls forever,” she warns him. “I know it’s hard to see him like that, but-”

“Like that?” Keith blinks. “Like what?” 

“Married.” 

Keith looks genuinely baffled. “Why would I be- I mean he’s happy, right? With Curtis? Or is something going on?” 

The Doc shakes her head. “They’re happy, Keith. He’s happily married to someone else-” 

“Someone else?” Keith lets out a long exhale, running a hand through his hair which is falling out of its braid around his face from their earlier antics. He sits cross legged on the floor. “I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding,” he says. He looks at her pointedly until she sinks onto the floor across from him. She’s probably chilly, just in an undershirt and her half-zipped flight suit, but she doesn’t complain.

“You’re in love with Shiro,” she says bluntly. 

“I _love_ Shiro,” Keith repeats in a slightly different tone. “That’s not the same thing.” 

“You haven’t been planet side since his wedding. Your vidcalls are shorter and less frequent with him compared to any of the other Paladins. You talk to _Griffin_ more often than you talk to Shiro-”

“Shiro’s retired, it’s not like I want to talk to Griffin.” Keith rolls his eyes. 

“Don’t lie to me,” the Doc warns, her voice sharp. 

“What do you want me to say?” Keith sounds the kind of angry he gets when he’s feeling helpless. Cornered. 

“Keith, I have a brother. I have a brother that was lost on the Kerberos mission and I fought the Garrison over their cover up. I went into space to save him and I would do anything to see him happy, but I _never_ looked at Matt the way you looked at Shiro.” 

“I don’t-”

“ _It’s killing me when you’re away._ ” Keith chokes but the Doc talks over him. “I read your little conspiracy theory board when we were in your desert hobo shack. Eidetic memory, ring a bell? That’s not platonic or familial-” 

“Pidge!” Keith cuts her off sharply. “You- You always got to know everything?”

“Knowledge or death,” the Doc quips and that startles a little laugh out of him. They sit in the quiet for a bit before Keith buckles. He pats the side of his leg like he’s calling the space wolf but the Doc is the one who gets up, rolling her eyes. She crawls closer and he pulls her half into his lap, resting his chin on top of her head. 

“I’ll tell you because it’s you,” Keith says finally. “And so you can get the others off my back, if they’re thinking like you do.” 

“Just us,” she promises, which neatly exempts her from the fact that she is digitally projecting this little drama for the whole station. The whole station, of course, being Shiro. He doesn’t feel guilty enough to leave the room, though. He sort of feels like he’s owed this much. Not from Keith, but. The universe maybe?

“I _was_ in love with Shiro, probably.” 

“Shocker.” 

Keith gives her a little squeeze that makes her squeak. “Don’t interrupt,” he warns. Shiro feels a little like he’s been squeezed by proxy. He sits on the edge of the countertop, knees gone soft. 

“I don’t need to tell you what he was to me, before. He was… _everything._ ” 

“I know, Keith. I remember the mind melding.” She sounds fond. 

“Me too. I don’t think I ever apologized for giving you a hard time when you wanted to leave to find your family. I’m glad you didn’t, but considering what I did to find Shiro…” 

“Forgiven and forgotten,” the Doc pats his arm. 

Keith is quiet again for a long while. “This is hard,” he says finally. “It’s just fucked up to say out loud, you know?” 

“No,” the Doc says honestly. “But I’ll try.” 

“Right. Well. When he came back, I was- it was like getting my life back, you know? But he wasn’t the same. It must have been the Galra and the experiments and everything he went through, I never thought he was _less_ but I just noticed, over time that I didn’t…” 

“You didn’t love him anymore.” 

“Not like _that,_ no. He was a different person to me. He never felt the same, even before the clone. How fucked up is that? And I mean, it worked out. Shiro wouldn’t want someone like me-”

“Like you, what the fuck, Keith-”

“Galra, and a fighter and totally unsuited for a quiet retirement, so it’s _fine-_ ”

“Keith-”

“I told him he was my brother. That I love him like a brother.” 

“Did you mean that?” The Doc sounds curious.

“By the time I said it? Yeah. Mostly.” 

“So why the disappearing act?” 

“Because I quit the Blades.” The Doc squirms until she is looking Keith in the face. 

“You quit the Blades? Can you even do that? Don’t you just get hazed in for life? Do they jump you out or something?” 

“It’s not a _gang,_ Jesus, Pidge-” 

“I mean, it kind of is a space gang-”

“Not the point.” Keith interrupts. 

“Okay, so… why did you quit the Blades?” The Doc pokes him in the chest until he meets her eyes. “That was your life.”

“No,” he admits reluctantly. “You guys are.” The Doc melts a little. “The Blades have limited resources, so we don’t work with anyone that’s Coalition resistant. But there’s this one planet cluster in NZ sector that’s asking to see Galra-Altean unity. I thought this might be a chance to get Lance off-world again. We don’t have the manpower for that kind of long term diplomacy, so I split. I want to help them, but… Paladins first, always.” 

“That’s not all.” The Doc grabs Keith by the face, squishing his cheeks. “There’s something else. Why else are you so gung-ho about NZ? It’s on the edge of No Man’s Land. There’s nothing out there.” 

“Yes,” he admits, words slurry around her prodding. “There’s something. But I don’t have enough to go off of yet.” She glares. “I _promise_ that you’ll be the first to know. Point is, I needed indefinite leave. There was some… restructuring.” 

“Mommy and Daddy split up? Is that why Axca is the new official head of the Blades of Marmora while all you got was this lousy cruiser?” 

“Take likes the cruiser,” Keith says with a hint of a pout. 

“Take-?” the Doc chances a glance up toward the cameras, mouth pursed. “Hm. He would. But don’t change the subject. Are you seriously avoiding Shiro because you don’t want to talk about the breakup?”

“It wasn’t a break up. There wasn’t anything _to_ break up, it never got that far. I just know he’d be really disappointed in me for not being the leader he wanted me to be… for Voltron or the Blades.”

“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit,” the Doc says, sliding off his lap. “He’s not all-powerful and he does care about you. You know you’re older now than he was when he went to Kerberos?” 

“I know, right? It’s crazy. What I wouldn’t give to go back.” Keith stands, reaching down a hand to pull the Doc to her feet. 

“Say you could,” the Doc says casually, brushing herself off. “Pretend you could say anything you wanted to _Before Kerberos Shiro._ What do you say?” 

Keith grins. “Marry me.” 

The monitor cuts off. 

~~

Keith leaves right after dinner. 

“I’ll be back as soon as I’ve convinced Lance,” he promises. 

“I won’t hold my breath, then,” the Doc grumbles. 

“Is that a challenge? Bet I can do it in a week,” Keith smirks. 

“Workweek or bust,” she challenges. 

After he leaves, Shiro slumps over to the nearest couch, burying his face into a pillow. 

“Oh it can’t be that bad,” the Doc says unsympathetically. “You had to know about his monster crush on you. He was practically bleeding it around the eyes up here.” 

“Not me,” Shiro says, voice muffled. “And I think he toned it down, when I was with Adam.” 

“Sounds like Keith. Stupidly honorable.” Her fingers still on the keyboard. “Your base levels are bottoming out,” she says in a different tone. She’s pulled up the data from his latest PT sessions. “When were you going to tell me?” 

“Today.” Shiro lies. She makes a rude noise behind his back. 

“Want to start third session integration tomorrow?” 

“No.”

“Shiro…”

“Next week okay?” Shiro mumbles. “Not like it makes much of a difference, anyway.” 

She tugs the pillow away in one swift pull. “It does,” she says bluntly. “It’s the difference between running out of energy at six o’clock and being able to walk to your own room for bed at nine. I know it feels like nothing, but isn’t. Not to anybody watching. Not to me.” 

He reaches out and grabs her, pulling her in to replace the pillow. 

“I know,” he says, muffled against her shoulder this time. “I’m sorry.” 

“I know, you big baby.” She fluffs his hair roughly. “I missed you down there.” 

“Me too,” he agrees. 

“Are you sorry he came?” she asks gently. 

“No,” Shiro admits. 

~~

It takes Keith four days. 

“-AND I met up with Shiro and Curtis,” he finishes telling the Doc triumphantly, strutting down the ramp. Lance is with him, tall and gangling, his sheepish expression trained anywhere but her. “They say hi, by the way. We went to brunch. You would not _believe_ what they charged for pancakes.” He shakes his head. 

“Surprise surprise,” the Doc grouses. “I’ve been trying to get him offworld for three years, you show up and get the okay in three days.” 

“Hey,” Lance protests weakly. 

“It’s fine,” the Doc sniffs. Shiro can tell it is not, in fact, fine. “Lay over a couple of days and we’ll get your ship fitted for the trip. I’m familiar with that sector.” She takes Keith by the arm and steers him down the hall toward the surplus supply room, pointedly ignoring the taller man. Alone, Lance kneels down to hug the space wolf around the neck. 

“You been abandoned too, old buddy? Just you and me against the world, Kosmo.” 

Kosmo yawns full in his face before blipping away. Lance looks down at his empty arms. “Aw man.”

Shiro laughs and Lance startles. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. Do you want to see your room? You could shower up before we eat.” 

“Yeah?” Lance’s eyes brighten. “Thanks! Wait, Keith mentioned you. Take? Pidge’s assistant?” 

“That’s me,” Shiro says agreeably, falling into step beside him. 

“So, like… she’s really mad, huh?” Lance laughs but it sounds forced. 

Shiro shrugs. “What do you think?” he asks instead. 

“I think… she’s really mad.” He slouches. “It’s not like I didn’t want to before! It’s Keith. _Keith._ He doesn’t ask for anything, like, ever. I don’t know if she gets it.”

“It’s special, having someone who doesn’t trust easy trust you. Like befriending a stray cat.” Shiro says, almost to himself.

“Exactly!” Lance claps his hands together. “Man, you got him nailed, huh?” 

“It’s not saying yes to Keith,” Shiro explains. “It’s saying no to her.” 

“Oh.” Lance shoves his hands in his pockets and looks up at the ceiling. “I might,” he says hesitantly, “I might have been doing that on purpose.” 

Shiro stops. 

“It’s not like it sounds,” Lance hedges. “It’s just- she’d come down and it would be just us. It was never just us, not before. It was the Voltron team or Team Garrison... I kinda liked having her there to myself.” 

“You thought if you came up here to see her, she’d stop making the effort?” 

“I thought I’d have to share. Her time, or whatever.” Lance wrinkles his nose. “It’s kinda gross, when I say it out loud like that.” 

“I think you’re not giving her enough credit,” Shiro says, stopping outside of Lance’s guest quarters. 

“Hm?” 

“She can be a bit like a stray cat, too.” His voice is fond. 

“Are the two of you...?” Lance asks hesitantly. Shiro barely remembers him from the Garrison- all the recruits blend and merge into eager puppies aside from Keith, but it feels familiar. Like he’s seen this wistful sort of face on Lance before, after a sim run, when he’s got something that Lance wants someday. But the Doc isn’t a high score, and Shiro won’t let Lance think of her that way. 

“I love her.” Shiro says simply. “And I owe her my life. I’m whatever she wants me to be.” He walks away, Lance gaping behind him. 

(Shiro’s never been above a little petty revenge)

~~

The visit is short; just two days to shore up supplies and the latest gadgets for the Doc to pass off to Hunk. They have a long standing game of what Lance dubs _techie tag_ where Keith will ferry odd little projects back and forth between the two whenever he’s out Hunk’s way. The Doc has been keeping it going for years now and Hunk is never too busy feeding the universe to do a little tinkering on the side. 

“He gets me,” the Doc explains, smiling fondly down at a hexagonal device that has, frankly, a frightening number of buttons and blinking lights. There’s a spout on the side. Shiro does not ask what the magenta liquid sloshing in the tube might be. 

“Jealous?” Lance prods Shiro behind her back. He has spent most of the little downtime trying to figure out what’s between the two of them with all the subtleness of a rock to the back of the head. 

Shiro holds up his hands innocently. “Far from it,” he says with a disarming smile. “If Matt and Hunk didn’t come by to rehome the Doc’s projects every once in a while, we wouldn’t even have room to move.” 

“Yeah, Lance.” Keith pipes up, carrying a crate of freeze-dried peas into the shuttlebay of his mini-cruiser. “You know what Pidge is like. It’s up to Take to keep things neat and tidy here. In The Station. Where they live. _Together._ ” 

Their eyes meet and Shiro bites down lightly on the inside of his cheek to keep a straight face. Lance huffs, turning his back on them and grousing over to Kosmo, who listens good-naturedly, just excited for the signs of impending space travel. 

“Sorry,” Keith says in a low voice beside him. Shiro doesn’t jump, though he badly wants to. “He’s not a bad guy, he just needs a kick in the right direction sometimes.” 

“She could do better,” Shiro says with feeling. 

Keith snorts. “Wanna try telling her that?” Shiro shakes his head emphatically. “Didn’t think so. It’ll work out. You don’t know him yet, but… he’s a good guy. Under it all, he means it.” 

“Does he?” Shiro asks doubtfully. He tries to carry in the last box of gadgets but it’s a little weighty; he tries to shift his weight to keep it from slipping and Keith reaches out, tucking it casually under one arm like it’s a shoebox. 

“Well, sure. Lance has a type. He’s always been into girls way out of his league.” Keith eyes him. “What about you? Sticking around a while, I hope?” 

“Prognosis uncertain,” Shiro jokes. Keith rolls his eyes but also smiles despite himself. 

“We’ll be out three phoebs- one out, one back, one for negotiations.” Keith shifts a little, only the weight isn’t bothering him. He looks uncertain for a moment- and young. 

“So I’ll see you in three months?” Shiro asks, trying not to sound too hopeful. From the way Keith softens, he suspects it’s only partially successful. 

“Yeah. I’ll see you.” Keith flicks out a casual salute and disappears up the ramp. Shiro watches him go only a little longingly. 

“Huh.” Shiro tears his eyes away to see Lance straighten up. He looks Shiro up and down with a strange sort of expression. Shiro is expecting him to be more of an ass about it, but all Lance does is put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “Take care of yourself,” he says sincerely. 

“And the Doc?” Shiro asks, unable to help himself. 

Lance laughs. “Nah, she can take care of herself.” 

Shiro decides maybe he likes the Blue Paladin okay after all. 

~~

Shiro gives in. They up his treatment cycles to three a day. It leaves him with fewer hours overall, but the time he does have is more productive. The Doc has the good grace not to rub it in. As a reward, he makes her pad thai without the whole peanuts. She is very appreciative. 

Keith and Lance check in once a movement or so. Keith calls the Doc more often, though- at least twice as often, though never for very long and never when Lance is around. When Shiro asks the Doc about it, she waves him off. 

“He’s chasing ghosts,” she says dismissively. Still, she always takes note of whatever Keith says, filling notebooks and whiteboards with complicated equations right after. 

Once, when Keith calls, Shiro answers. “She’s out like a light,” he explains apologetically. She’d conked out on top of her keyboard and Shiro had to carry her to bed. The only reason he was even awake to take the call was because of the punishment he’d put his weakened muscles through carrying her there in the first place- but he was nothing if not stubborn. The Doc weighs next to nothing. He should be able to handle it. 

“Oh.” Keith seems surprised. He looks off to the right for a moment, clearly running the numbers. “It’s late. Sorry to wake you.” 

“You didn’t,” Shiro reassures, but then Keith’s eyes focus on him. Keith knows exactly what he means. 

“How’s The Station?” Keith asks. 

Shiro shrugs. “Nothing to tell.” There isn’t. His mouth hurts, from smiling and talking, even this little bit. Keith looks a bit lost. Shiro pities him, but isn’t sure how to save this awkwardness without just… hanging up. 

Then Keith starts talking. 

It’s nothing important, nothing that needs encryption. He talks about the geography where they are and the history and the major landmarks. It’s half tourism guide and half military scouting report, but his low warm voice and cadence lulls Shiro out of his painful hunch and into a relaxed state. It goes on for a while. Shiro loses count between one blink and the next. 

“Go to sleep, Take.” Keith says gently, before signing off. 

“You should call me again,” Shiro says, because he’s tired and he wants it. 

And the funny thing is, Keith does. 

From that point on, when Keith calls to talk to the Doc, with Lance or without him, he has her hand the vidcall off afterward. Even just for a minute here and there, he talks to Shiro. 

Falling, falling. 

~~

Shiro gets out of the Anti-Grav pod one session and he’s dizzy, which is a bad sign. It means the blood flow isn’t evenly distributed for this setting. He glances down at the screen though he knows what it will say. He’s already only two clicks away from the hard red line. It won’t get better, after that. It won’t even stay at an even keel. It’ll just be a question of when.

When he goes to find the Doc, though, she seems distracted. Shiro decides his discovery can wait. It’s not like it means he’ll be dying any sooner, anyway. He’s just a little more aware of the clock is all. 

“What’s up, Doc?” he asks cutely. It goes unappreciated, as she continues frowning down at something on her screen. 

“Math,” she says slowly, like she’s not sure it’s the right answer. 

“Do we not like math anymore?” Shiro asks, pulling up a chair. He isn’t on her level- he’s not sure many people are, really, but he’s no slouch and a good listener, anyway. 

“Quintessence math,” the Doc says, making a face. 

“Star Wars math,” Shiro agrees. 

“There’s just too many variables,” the Doc sighs, removing her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Even among members of the same species, the amount of quintessence has such a wide range. It’s impossible to calculate in any reliable way. In a way, Zarkon and Honerva’s plan to just strip-mine the stuff makes sense in comparison.” 

“Properties of zero,” Shiro agrees. “Is there a trigger for this numerical crisis?”

“Keith called,” the Doc doesn’t look up at him. “He couldn’t talk long this time, but he transmitted some data I’m sorting through.” 

“Chasing ghosts?” Shiro recalls. 

“Ghost in the machine.” She glances at him sidelong. “We lost someone, saving the multiverse.” 

“Princess Allura. I’ve seen the holodisks.” Shiro looks over her shoulder at the screen. 

“The Coalition propaganda serves its purpose, but it skimps on the science.” 

“Science me,” Shiro requests. 

“Honerva was redirecting the paths of realities using quintessence. Allura convinced her to reconsider, and the two of them channeled enough quintessence to restore balance- essentially, they redirected the stream back, using their own powers as the dam.” She demonstrates, using her hands and several beakers that she nearly slides off the table a few times, distracted. 

“So then, in theory, once redirected, the dam is superfluous,” Shiro murmurs. “You could recover it. Partially. Maybe.” 

“Well, yes and no.” the Doc pulls up another tab. “We’re assuming quintessence properties are relativistic. Quintessence behaves differently depending on its source, method of extraction, processing, application, amount-” 

“A function of infinite variables,” Shiro rolls his eyes. “My favorite.” 

“Oh, we haven’t even applied factors for discrete and continuous time yet. Multiverse time stream and all.” The Doc frowns. “I just don’t see how it’s _possible._ ”

“What exactly are you looking for?” Shiro asks. 

“Keith thinks he’s found something,” the Doc says reluctantly. “He sensed it, out in NZ, very faint. He’s quintessence sensitive, more so than most Galra or humans or hybrids. Not sure why. He thinks it’s a piece of the dam, so to speak, lodged in a fixed time and space. I’m starting to think that maybe he’s right.” 

“What does that mean?”

“I hope we’ve still got some of those Cheetohs left.” The Doc sighs. “It means we’re hosting a party.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a chunk of this at once so most updates won't be this quick just FYI


	3. Discouraged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hat Trick Triple Fic Update!

Shiro can’t remember the last time he’d thrown a party. Maybe back at the Garrison, for Adam? Or had that been Adam’s friends? Surely he’d helped. He’d been there, at least. Well, for part of it. There had been a new sim installation, and- 

Digression. 

When he and Adam had decided to get married- when Adam had popped the question over a desert picnic, he had genuinely wanted a wedding. They hadn’t gotten to the planning stage- not before Kerberos and everything leading to that mild tiny gaping crater of a split, but he’d thought about it some. He’d assumed they’d both wear their dress uniforms. There probably would have been flowers, in an arch. Blue to purple to pink, since hydrangeas were Adam’s favorite, even if they made Shiro sneeze like mad. Adam’s brother had been ordained. Those little triangle puff pastries at the reception. Doable, though. How hard could one big party be for a handful of close friends and family? 

The answer is: Ungodly. 

Shiro has never once, not even one time, used his illness as an excuse to get out of anything. Part of it is discipline, sure, but a greater part is that he has always known that if he let himself do it even one time, it would never stop. Shiro had goals, and backsliding wasn’t on the list. If he needed accomodation, he took it. If he could go without, he would take that too. 

But this party planning stuff was pushing him awful close to the edge. 

Clean linens, desperate cleaning, party music and mood lighting.

“Food?” Shiro asks the Doc. 

“We’ll order pizza or something.” She waves him off. “Start making those phone calls, chief!” 

“Who…?”

“Hunk, call Hunk.” She’s setting up a graph with multiple vectors so he beats it quick before she decides space math is a better use of his skill set. He’s already got a headache building up from the afternoon treatments. He’s at the red line, so it can’t be helped. 

“Yellow Paladin?” Shiro peers into the vidscreen which shows a blank space. 

A backside clad in yellow trimmed white steps into view. The figure straightens and turns. “Oh! I thought- isn’t this Pidge’s line?” He puts a tray of frankly beautiful looking dumplings on the counter. Shiro feels his mouth water. They are in perfect geometric shapes and whatever that dipping sauce is that the Yellow Paladin is whisking in a bowl held to his hip looks heavenly. 

“Yes, sorry.” He spares one more longing look toward the dumplings. “I’m Take, her assistant. The Doc wants to have a party to celebrate Lance’s return to space in a movement or so. Are you free?”

“ _Pidge_ wants a party? With people around? Like a bunch of people?” 

“A small party,” Shiro adds. 

“Still! This has never happened in the history of ever, so, uh, _yeah,_ I’ll be there. Am I first on the call list?” 

Shiro nods. 

“Yes!” Hunk pumps his fist. “I’m the best!” He leans a little closer to the vidscreen, popping a dumpling into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. He adds a dash more red into the dipping sauce and nods his approval. 

“Just tell me when, I’m there. I can get in touch with everyone else on the way back, you probably have other things to do to get ready. I’m due for a stop in New Altea anyway, so I can grab Coran and Romelle. What about food?” 

“There’s, uh. There’s Cheetohs?” Shiro tries not to wilt. “And the Doc said, maybe space pizza?” 

Hunk stares. Shiro swallows, feeling mildly pathetic. 

“Right, so I’ll _definitely_ be stopping at New Altea first for supplies anyway, then. And I’m heading that way first thing tomorrow, there’s gonna be a lot of kitchen prep.” He frowns. “ Romelle can give me a hand, but I’d be happier with one more if I’m using untrained helpers. I don’t suppose you can be persuaded?” 

Shiro grins. “Teach me how to make those dumplings and I’m all yours.” 

“Take, I think this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Hunk slurps the sauce off his fingers. 

~~

Hunk is true to his word: he rolls into The Station a full week before the party is scheduled and takes over the kitchen. He teaches Shiro how to make three different kinds of dumplings. They taste amazing, though Shiro's folds are clumsy in comparison. 

“It just takes practice. It took me years to get this good,” Hunk consoles him, folding two perfect flower shaped buns without even looking. 

“Years, huh? Guess I’m out of luck,” Shiro grins. Hunk does not. 

He’d forgotten, for a minute. The Doc and Keith don’t seem to mind it so much, his joking about being gone. Or if they do, they get it well enough to not react. 

Hunk, Shiro is learning, is fundamentally incapable of not reacting.

“My Dad, he used to say it’s nothing you’re doing wrong, in most cases. It’s just… somebody is doing it _more_ right. Someone else being better doesn’t mean anything against you.” Hunk touches Shiro’s saddest dumpling briefly and whatever small twist he has done transforms it into a perfect crescent shape. "You're being the best Take you can. You should let other people appreciate that."

“Sorry,” Shiro says after a moment has passed. “I mean… thanks.” 

“Don’t mention it,” Hunk says, flicking a little flour at Shiro with a smile. 

~~

It takes some shuffling, but by the time Keith and Lance have an ETA for return, The Station is ready to go. Matt even comes up early to help and it doesn’t escape Shiro’s notice that the Doc has keyed all systems to accept his commands. They don’t talk much, Shiro is always a little worried that Matt might see through things. He’s too clever by half. It’s easier for Shiro to keep his distance. 

Hunk takes the planet hopper down for one more load of oysters and comes back with company. 

The Other Shiro steps off the ship smiling. He hugs the Doc warmly and compliments the place as his husband rolls their luggage down the ramp. The Other Shiro leads the way toward the dock where Shiro waits to help Hunk carry the crates to the kitchen and he just hopes that his rictus of horror can be played off as paralytic hero worship. Everyone knows Takashi Shirogane now. 

(Not him, Shiro thinks.)

A voice crackles across the transmitter and carries across the cargo bay just as Shiro and Other Shiro lock eyes.

“This is KILO-229, maintaining holding pattern. Pilot requests permission to land,” Keith’s voice lights up the monitoring equipment and Shiro turns to it gratefully but The Other Shiro is two steps ahead. 

“Bring it on in, Keith, you two are the last.” he says warmly into the mic. “We’ve left Hangar 8 open for you.” 

Keith jerks a little in surprise at seeing him on vidscreen. “Shiro? What…”

“Forget me already?” The Other Shiro teases. “I heard this was your idea.” 

“No, I mean. It was... It’s nice to see you, I just wasn’t expecting-” Keith breaks off. The Other Shiro laughs and waves him off. Hunk hands Shiro a crate of oysters and he totters off toward the kitchen. He’ll miss Keith’s arrival this way, but it’s for the best. He doesn’t need to stand around love-struck while Keith hugs his Shiro. He’s not sure what his face will do, and the Doc gives him enough shit as it is.

A few minutes later, Shiro’s happily installed shucking oysters while Hunk whips up mignonette and Romelle cuts up Altean love apples for the amuse-bouche. Kosmo bamphs his way into the kitchen first, nuzzling against Shiro’s knee in greeting. Shiro, not missing a beat, slips him a freshly shucked oyster. 

“Huh,” Hunk pauses, looking up. “Didn’t think wolves ate oysters.” 

“Space wolves would eat anything, I imagine,” Romelle says sensibly. 

“Earth wolves eat oysters too,” Shiro explains. “Canadian coastal wolves swim between islands and live off the sea. My first long flight out with the Garrison was over Vancouver, so we were flying low and this wolf just leaped out of the sea with a salmon in its mouth-”

“-like a big dog carrying a newspaper,” The Other Shiro echoes in the doorway behind him. Shiro stays where he is, bent over the crate. He reaches for another oyster without looking up. Kosmo looks between the two of them before huffing through his nose and nudging Shiro for another bite. 

“Last one, these are pricey,” Shiro murmurs. 

“I’ve never met anyone else who has seen them,” The Other Shiro moves to the counter directly across from him, where it will be unbearably rude not to look up. “Especially after the Galra invasion. There’s some talk that they might be just about extinct now.” He sounds sad, not suspicious, but... 

“It was a long time ago,” Shiro evades. He glances up with a tight little smile. 

“Takashi, get out of the kitchen,” Curtis frowns, slipping between them to grab The Other Shiro by his left hand. “Sorry,” he apologizes to Shiro. “It must seem so rude not to help, but he’s an actual human disaster around food, so…” 

“We’ve got it,” Shiro assures him. “I’m used to cooking for the Doc.” Curtis lights up. 

“Wait. We haven’t met. Aren’t you... Take?” 

“That’s me,” Shiro feels half shucked himself at this point. “I guess she mentioned me.” 

“Pidge doesn’t just _mention_ anything. Actually, you’re a pretty well-kept secret. Keith told us about you at brunch.” 

“Oh yeah, he told me about you too,” Hunk pipes up. “When he brought me the duohydroxoline counter from Pidge.” 

“What did he say?” Shiro asks cautiously. Curtis and The Other Shiro exchange a look. Curtis just beams afterward but The Other Shiro is looking at him with just a hair too much focus. 

“He said you took the mini-cruiser for a spin?” Hunk grins, starting to arrange the shucked oysters on a bed of ice. 

“He let you _fly_ it?” Romelle looks aghast. “He wouldn’t even let me sit in the co-pilot’s seat!” 

“Keith even called him a hell of a pilot,” Hunk goads and Romelle glares at her chef’s knife balefully.

“He liked your cupcakes, too,” The Other Shiro mentions off-handedly, and that, for some reason, is the thing that makes Shiro blush. 

~~

Shiro wants to be useful, circulating the party with snacks and refreshing drinks, but he’s strictly forbidden. 

“What is the point of building a small robot army if you can’t have them wait on you at parties?” 

“How very provincial,” he grins, leaning down to tuck Doc’s tag back out of sight. He takes a second to look her over, in the little nook he's been hiding in. He’s pinned her hair flowing off to one side, like an old Hollywood actress. Her dress too is slip style with little jade beads swishing all over. She looks very pretty, even scowling.

“Shut it, Shiro.” She instructs. “They are simple, useful bots- and if anyone is cruel to them, they have enough autonomy to really mess up someone's day.” 

“I doubt any of your friends would do that,” He assures her. 

“I know that! But you don’t.” She peers at him under her feathery fringe. “I want you to like them.”

“You want me to like _Lance._ ”

“You don’t like Lance?” She asks, sounding a little worried. 

“He’s growing on me,” Shiro admits. 

“What’s that?” Keith joins them with a faint smile. 

“Lance is growing on him,” the Doc parrots back. 

“He does grow,” Keith agrees. “Like a fungus.” 

“Hey.” Lance frowns, walking up. He hands the Doc a glass of something pink and fizzy. “Make it like, a truffle, at least.” 

“Korrellian Fleurberry Liquor.” Keith makes a face. “That stuff is revoltingly sweet.” A drone floats by in black tie and white collar; Keith snags two oysters, slurping one down and holding the other out for Kosmo.

Lance shrugs and takes a sip. “Tastes like Peeps.” 

“The pink bunny ones,” the Doc agrees. 

“What are you drinking, Take? I’ll get you a refill while I’m at the bar.” Keith takes Shiro’s empty glass and gives it a sniff. 

“Galran Whiskey, really?” He sounds a little impressed. “Haven’t seen any Terrans who can stand the stuff.”

“It’s watered,” Shiro demurs. “And anyway, next to some of those Grellet muscle regeneration serums, this stuff is pretty much apple juice.”

“It _does_ have apple notes,” Keith’s eyes shine. “Lance told me my mouth was broken.” Lance snorts. 

“Lance seems more like a jungle juice kind of guy,” Shiro says thoughtfully, glancing over at the Blue Paladin who is now too busy watching the Doc to listen. Keith laughs, short and bright. 

“Lance has a delicate constitution,” Coran says breezily, joining their little group. He drapes an arm over Keith’s shoulder. “He used to have a hard time with _nunvill_ , if you can believe it.”

“Imagine that,” Keith says, amused. 

“I’ve brought an especially fine batch from New Altea…?” He looks at them so hopefully that all Shiro can do is smile back.

“If… if it’s just a taste,” he says weakly. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Keith says in a mock-whisper when Coran goes to find clean glasses. “Take Pidge and save yourselves.” 

“Where are we taking Pidge?” Lance asks over Keith’s shoulder just as Coran returns. 

“Ah, Lance! Just in time…” 

“Ooh, is that the first nunvill batch from Svenchen Brewery?” Romelle claps her hands together in delight. Their little circle is growing ever larger, the niche quite crowded and Shiro feels just a tiny, just a touch bit overwhelmed. 

Keith claps Lance on the back. “A toast,” he proposes, taking a subtle step backwards and propelling Lance into the center. “To Altea!” 

“To Altea!” Romelle and Coran clink glasses and pass them around. Eventually there’s only one left. The Alteans look at Lance expectantly. 

“To Altea,” he chimes in, taking it. As the others sip noisily, he pauses just long enough to send a scathing glare in Keith’s direction. Then Lance looks down at his glass like a man going to the gallows. 

“Go, go,” Keith urges in Shiro’s ear, steering him out of the main room and down the hall. Lance flips them the bird and downs his glass in one go. 

“Come on,” Keith suggests. He leads the way to the observation deck and pulls himself up, sitting on the railing. Shiro leans gingerly next to him. Keith looks great, dark suit in black and purple making his eyes even brighter. It’s hard for Shiro to look away. 

“Pidge is pretty drunk, or getting there.” Keith smiles. “She’s not usually like that.”

“I know,” Shiro says gently. “She’s nervous.” 

“Me too.” He looks over the view. The stars are so beautiful. Shiro wonders if he’ll ever lose that feeling. 

“Do you know what comes next?” Keith asks, and it’s his turn to sound gentle. 

“You’re leaving. You’re taking her.” Shiro sighs out. He hasn’t said it yet, out loud. 

“Something like that,” Keith agrees. “NZ is… it’s far. And how long it will take to get past No Man’s Land and find… whatever there is to find. It might be a long time.” 

Shiro nods. “This Station and these treatments and her… that’s my whole world, Keith. It’s all I know.” 

“The Doc has a cryopod. Matt would be here, to look over you. And when we get back, in a year or five or ten there might be a cure.” 

Shiro hums. “I don’t want to go under. The muscles still degrade, and I slept enough of my life away already. She knows better than that. So do you.” 

“I do.” Keith reaches out like he’s going to touch Shiro but he falls short. His hand is on the rail instead. “You know, from here, you’ve got stars in your eyes,” he says wistfully. Shiro looks up at him. 

“I can’t put my life on maybes,” Shiro says softly. This has to be goodbye.

Still, they both lean in. 

“Oh man do I _not_ wanna do this,” Hunk moans stepping into the room. Spell broken, they pull away from each other. 

“So don’t,” Keith gripes but hops off the railing. 

“I have to, man. Lance went to change the music and _somehow_ brought up the whole damn data plan across all the screens! And Pidge is drunk and now there’s a lot of, like, shouting?”

Keith sighs deeply then snaps his fingers to call Kosmo. Kosmo whisks all three of them back to the main room. There’s several pieces of cake thrown at the walls, two broken glasses on the floor, and the Doc, almost doubled over in Matt’s arms. Lance is sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, by the largest monitor. His head is in his hands and he won’t look up. 

“She’s so drunk,” Matt says a little helplessly. 

“I can help.” Hunk holds up a small violently pink vial. “Turns out the byproduct of duohydroxoline separation makes one hell of a sobriety tonic.” 

“I just wanted one good night,” she groans, sputtering around the tonic. 

Hunk pets the Doc’s hair a little roughly, in a way that makes her smile up at him through glimmering eyes. “Sorry, Cinderella. Looks like the ball ended early.” 

Shiro’s eye catches on the monitor. He takes a half-step forward, eyes focusing on one of the data sectionals. Blips, graphs. He knows this short hand. Here, one of five separate vector sets. This one is marked in purple; a little tic of the Doc’s, to indicate an interchangeable variable. More than one possible entry, if the other four are constant. But that would mean… 

“Feeling better?” Hunk asks the Doc. 

“Yeah,” she mutters. She lifts her head and catches sight of Lance. “On second thought, no.” 

Lance laughs a little shrilly into his hands. “What the fuck, Pidge? How long did you know…?”

Shiro runs the numbers in his head. That’s a trip, alright. Even with wormhole travel, and there’s no guarantee that time will travel in a linear way, so- 

“It’s my fault,” Keith says immediately. “I’m the one who asked for help.”

“So you both lied to me. That’s-what, that’s better?” 

Quintessence math, sure, but...

“I think we should all go to bed,” Hunk says, walking over to Lance and rubbing soothing circles on his back. “It’s late, and- and it’s late,” he finishes lamely. 

The math checks out. 

~~

For the first time, Shiro skips night treatment. Some things, he thinks, are more important. And there's nothing past the red line, so. 

He knocks at the Doc’s door. When she opens it to let him inside, she’s still in her party dress, though her hair is loose. He sits her down and combs it out for her and they don’t say anything for a while. 

“Did you see?” She asks finally when he’s finished. 

“The purple? Yes. But I’m not sure I understand.” He sets the brush on the table and sits beside her. As soon as he settles, she’s up, pacing the room. 

“Palliative care, you know what that is?” She asks. Of course he knows. He knows she knows. She shakes her head. “I mean how it intersects with patient autonomy and bioethics.” 

“Are we discussing medical philosophy?” Shiro raises an eyebrow. 

“Yes. No.” She pauses. 

“Doc. What’s this about?” 

“What if I told you I had a breakthrough with the nanobots?” She asks. She’s twisting her hands in her skirt. “What if I said… what if I said you had a choice. Qualitative over quantitative.” 

“Assist extrapolation,” Shiro requests automatically. 

She laughs a little, a sharp sound, choked off abruptly. When she breathes in, there’s a hiccup. What might be a sob. 

“Doc-” Shiro starts to reach for her but she steps backward, her hands resting on a small black case on her dresser. Not make up or jewelry, he realizes. 

Something medical grade. 

“You can stay here with Matt. He’ll love you like I love you, and you won’t be alone when you go. Hell, maybe we’ll be back in no time, right? Space time mumbo jumbo. Or you could stasis till we find better medical options, or-” She falters. 

“Tell me,” he asks. 

“Or you could try a third option. You could try this nanobot injection. It’ll flood your cells with hypergrowth serum constantly. You’ll regain a minimum of 75% lost muscular function. You might even see gains over a hundred. You’ll be strong, fit, balanced, perfectly in control… for a while.” The Doc smiles even as a tear escapes her left eye, rolling down the side of her face. 

“And then, your muscles will respond a little less readily. You’ll need more and more and more serum. And when the serum stops working-” She swallows thickly. “It’ll be fast. And painless, I think.” 

“Doc-” 

“I love you,” she tells him. “No matter what, okay?” He pulls her into a hug. 

“Thank you,” he whispers into her hair. “Thank you for everything.” 

In the morning, she goes down to breakfast.

Shiro takes the injection. 

~~

He sleeps.

~~

“I love you,” The Other Shiro tells Curtis in the loading bay before take off. “I know time is… strange, in space. It could be a long time. I don’t want to leave you. If you tell me not to go...” 

“You love me because I wouldn’t tell you something like that,” Curtis corrects him. “And I love you because you’re the type who would go anyway.” 

The Other Shiro squeezes his hands. “If there was anyone else, I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t. But it has to be me.” 

“That,” Shiro interrupts, stepping into view, “isn’t entirely accurate.” They’re the only three people left in the hangar now, everyone else already on board the New Altean cruiser Coran obtained for their mission. Curtis blinks but The Other Shiro just waits, expression neutral. 

“You don’t seem all that surprised,” Shiro observes. 

The Other Shiro flexes his good arm, and even under the bulky jacket, the muscles ripple. “With what we have, I never should have gotten to this size. Putting on this much muscle mass, in a year… it’s just not possible.” 

“When did you know?” 

“That I was a clone?” The Other Shiro sits on a nearby stack of crates and somehow that makes Shiro sit too. “After the recombination. Before that, I thought my memories were just repressed from the trauma, but then I realized… there was a reason why everything before the arena was so unclear. Myzax, that was you?” 

Shiro nods. “Right after that, I think. I was in cryo until last year when the Doc found me.” 

“What do you want to do?” The Other Shiro asks, like he actually has options. 

Shiro shrugs. “It’s not like it’s going to be a problem for very much longer,” he says bluntly. 

“A problem?” The Other Shiro echoes. “I’m living your life. You’re the real Shiro.” 

“What’s real?” Shiro takes a deep breath. He's not used to how that doesn't hurt anymore just yet. “You’re a better me than I could have been. You did exactly what those kids needed to save the world. You’re Shiro the Hero. I just got to be him a little earlier, is all.” 

The Other Shiro looks like he wants to protest, but Curtis lays a hand on his and he settles back down, closing his mouth. 

“I never even met Lance or Hunk or Coran or Allura. Not till recently. And I didn’t get married, and I didn’t captain a sentient battleship. I don’t want your life.” Shiro assures him. 

“What _do_ you want?” The Other Shiro asks. 

“I want my space adventure.” Shiro grins. The two older men exchange a somber look. 

“You’re not completely home free,” Shiro amends. “The Doc will still need some things from you. Your crystal, for one, and a sample of quintessence. Yours was combined with Allura’s the longest.” Shiro holds up a silver sample bag. 

“But he doesn’t have to go,” Curtis says. 

“No. He doesn’t have to go.” 

“You’ll probably die out there,” The Other Shiro argues. 

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees. “All according to plan. We finally did it.” 

The Other Shiro snorts a little laugh. Curtis doesn’t. 

“It’s going to half kill Keith to lose you again,” Curtis says, looking at Shiro seriously. Shiro’s mouth goes dry. 

“I’m not his Shiro,” he protests weakly. 

“You are. We grew apart, after I realized it. It felt like lying. We had a whole relationship just built on lies.” The Other Shiro shakes his head. “After I left the Black Lion and combined with this body… it just wasn’t the same. I didn’t _feel_ as strongly anymore, about anything. Till I met Curt.” He smiles at his husband warmly. “I think I broke, whatever there was before that. With all the paladins, but definitely with Keith. He doesn’t even like to see me when he’s planetside anymore.” His mouth twists in a way Shiro recognizes- when something bothers him that he doesn’t want known. From the way Curtis looks at The Other Shiro sympathetically, he’s grown to recognize it too. 

“That’s not true. Your connection is real,” Shiro argues. “You have had longer together now than we had, before. You two are close, that’ll help when I go. And Keith’s strong,” Shiro clears his throat. “He’ll get over it.”

“Oh Shiro,” Curtis looks a bit sad. “He’s never been good at that.” 

~~

“Take?” Keith stands as Shiro walks into the control center onboard. “I thought you didn't want… Well, nevermind that. Are you coming along?” His expression brightens then dims. “Wait, are we even equipped-? And you look a little different…” he trails off. 

Shiro squares his shoulders. 

Hunk and Lance glance up from their seats mildly and the Doc slides through to the front easily, standing just at Shiro’s back. He gives her a sharp nod. Coran, at the control, pauses his pre-flight checks.

“Before you all come for my head,” the Doc says mulishly, reaching up to deactivate Shiro’s external nanobot program, “I wasn’t sure at first. And _then_ I wasn’t the only person involved anymore, so.” 

Shiro sees the slight flicker out of the corner of his eye that indicates the identity generator drop. 

“Hi,” Shiro says sheepishly. “My name is Takashi Shirogane, but my friends have been calling me Take.” 


	4. Over and Out There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zombie_kittiez) now, come yell at me about sheith

Lance laughs. It’s a whoop of too-loud incredulous laughter that breaks the stunned silence. “Oh my _god,_ Pidgeon. What in the _fuck._ ” He laughs until it cuts off mid-breath. 

A strained silence settles over the control room. 

“It wasn’t her secret to tell,” Shiro says firmly, though he is still looking at Keith. “This was my call.” There’s a curious sort of calm around Keith now, the product of six years- no, eight, for him- and oddly reminds Shiro of a blanket, dampening his sharp edges under. Shiro doesn’t know this Keith, not really. The way that Keith is looking at him, he thinks that probably the other man must be thinking the same sort of thing. 

Shiro finds he misses the explosion he’d been expecting - intensity, bright and Keith-colored, flaring hot. Afterward, the coolness of ashes. That Keith didn’t burn bridges, he napalmed them. Yelling, slamming fists into doors and walls. There was calm afterward, but never acceptance. That Keith would never accept that there were things he couldn’t change. 

How well do they even know each other? 

What have they been doing, all this time? 

Maybe Shiro’s just been missing teenage Keith, too. 

Mistakes, all around. 

“Alright there, Number Four?” Coran asks worriedly. “Should we proceed or delay the launch...?” 

“Proceed,” Keith says quietly. 

It is the last that anyone says for a long time. 

~~

“Well!” Hunk rises from his seat once the course is steady. “I’d love to stay in this suffocating and miserable environment with you all, but I would also rather be doing, like, _literally_ anything else.” 

“Eloquent as always,” the Doc rolls her eyes. 

“Yeah, well, I’m the cute one. Can’t hog all the gifts.” He flicks her shoulder as he passes by her chair, enough that she will know that he isn’t upset with her. 

“Take? I mean, Shiro?” Shiro winces when he looks up. “You’re the only one of these culinary neanderthals that I trust near a cheese grater. Up for helping me in the mess hall?” 

“You can call me whatever.” Shiro says uneasily, half rising from his chair. He isn’t sure who he is talking to. No one seems able to look at him directly. “Whatever’s easier,” Shiro amends. 

“Keith, do you need him for anything right now?” Hunk asks and Shiro remembers- 

Keith’s in charge. 

He’s a _leader._ He’s responsible for all of them, for their mission and their safety. 

And Shiro and the Doc have been hiding things. 

“Shiro can do whatever he wants.” Keith’s voice is perfectly even, eyes fixed on the display ahead. He doesn’t look at Shiro again. 

~~

“You weren’t kidding about the cheese grater,” Shiro says bemusedly. 

“They call it comfort food for a reason, Shiro.” Hunk whisks the bechamel over the stove top while Shiro reaches for a second block of gruyere. “Nothing more comforting than a big ole’ serving of fresh mac en cheese.” 

“I think this might be a problem too big for cheesy pasta, Hunk.” Shiro says with regret. 

“Sure, sure. But you know- it’s not the pasta.” Hunk begins adding the finely shredded cheese into his base sauce, melting it a bit at a time. 

“No?”

“No.” Hunk says firmly. “The food, the atmosphere- it’s supposed to keep everyone sitting down together. Maybe they come to the table upset or pissed or depressed, but they sit down together, they eat something warm and tasty and then the world starts looking a little better, you know? A little happier. Problems get a little easier to talk about.” 

Hunk moves about the kitchen with careful steps. It isn’t the same boneless athleticism as Keith, but there is no wasted movement. He never misplaces a spoon, spills an unnecessary drop. This is Hunk, intergalactic chef, Coalition figurehead... but this is also the Legendary Yellow Paladin. He knows how to fight and how not to. 

“Er… I got something on my face?” Hunk slows. 

“No, no. That’s amazing, Hunk.” Shiro resumes grating. “I’m just impressed.” 

Hunk stops completely. His wooden spoon dribbles a thin line of sauce onto his otherwise spotless apron, frozen midair. 

“Hunk, you’re spilling-”

Hunk drops the spoon back into the bowl a little too hard. It spatters cheese sauce onto the counter. 

“Sorry,” Hunk says, but he’s smiling at the mess. 

“Is… everything alright?” 

Hunk sets the bowl on the counter, lowers the flame to a simmer with a flick of his wrist against the dial. “‘Course.” He settles, leaning onto his elbows and looking at Shiro very closely, eye bright. “I’ve just never heard you say something like that before.” 

“Me?” Shiro asks. 

“Yeah, man.” Hunk’s eyes crinkle up warmly. “You saved that kind of stuff for Keiths and Lances. Hot shot pilot stuff.” 

“It wasn’t me,” Shiro explains. “I wasn’t here, Hunk. I didn’t see. I didn’t do… any of those things.” 

“I’m talking about you.” Hunk pokes Shiro in the arm, for emphasis. “Oh man, that’s nice. Pidge’s bots really-”

“Hunk, focus.”

“Right, sorry.” Hunk pulls his hands back from massaging Shiro’s bicep. “I am talking about you, though. _The_ Garrison Shirogane? Youngest pilot on record since the program kicked off? I mean, _c’mon_ dude.”

“Really.” Shiro flushes in embarrassment. He’d forgotten, honestly, in the business of dying, that he’d ever been _The_ anything. 

“Do you know what it was _like,_ watching your sims? The shit you pulled…” Hunk shakes his head. “If I was your engineer, I’d probably have died of a heart attack.” 

“Keith was better,” Shiro says faintly. 

“Keith was _rougher._ You saw how he shredded Lance and Griffin in the records. He’s got Galra reflexes and a total disinterest in collateral damage. You were the real deal- and you never took a risk that didn’t pay off.” 

“Till Kerberos.” Shiro looks down at his hands. 

“It paid off,” Hunk saya softly. “Just not for you.” 

“That’s right.” Shiro agrees. “Not me.” 

“What I’m saying is… that means something from you. Not because of Black Paladin Leaderman Shiro, but because it’s you. And you’re special, you’re… your own special Shiro.” 

“Eloquent,” Shiro echoes. 

“You spent too much time with Pidge, though.” He wrinkles his nose. “Come on. I happen to know that Keith _loves_ mac and cheese.” 

~~

Nothing gets solved over dinner, exactly. Coran puts the ship on autopilot for an hour, though, and they all manage to sit together. Most conversations are filtered through Hunk and are strictly limited to compliments about the food and banal observations about trip planning. 

Keith doesn’t say much, but he does ask for seconds. It’s a draw. 

Coran and the Doc offer to do dishes but Shiro supervises anyway because he and Hunk are the only ones who know where everything goes. He finds himself leaning back against the island counter, looking up at the ceiling. There’s a transparent panel, here, and he can see the streak of pinpoint light out there. Stars, for ages. 

“It never gets old,” Coran tells him, apropos of nothing. Shiro blinks and drags his attention back down. They’re looking at him. He must have missed a prompt in the conversation. Shiro smiles weakly and hopes they will let it slide. 

He really ought to know better by now. 

“They’ll get over it,” the Doc tells him, flipping her short hair back from her face in a way that’s meant to be nonchalant. “We’re all Paladin-bonded anyway.” 

“Not me,” Shiro reminds her. 

“Yes, you. You’re the one here, aren’t you?” 

“For my own selfish, stupid reasons, Doc.” Shiro shakes his head. “I’m not their Shiro- and you can’t make them love me.” 

The Doc opens her mouth to argue but then thinks better of it. She looks angrily to the side instead. Coran fluffs her hair. She rather looks like an angry kitten and it makes Shiro smile for real this time. 

“A proper Paladin bond is… well, it’s inevitable. It’s a perfect combination of the Chosen. A bond of brotherhood… so to speak.” Coran explains slowly. “To last not only a lifetime, but down generations.” 

“Guess we really fucked that up,” the Doc mutters. 

“Not you,” Coran assures her. “Not… any of you.” 

“We’re not Paladins,” Shiro points out. “I’ve never even seen a Lion.” 

“So maybe that’s the problem. No, not you-” the Doc says dismissively when he looks stricken. “-that we aren’t behaving like Paladins anymore. I mean we were chosen even before we found them all. We were still Paladins when the Lions were down or when we weren’t fighting. We’re Paladins now. We need to act like it.” 

“I might have a few ideas. I’ll have to run them by your team leader, though.” Coran warns. 

“If you call it training, Keith’ll go along with it. You’re better off asking without either of us around, though. C’mon, Shiro. Two to a room, and the way things are, we’ll bunk together. Less chance of blood on the walls.” the Doc loops her arm loosely through Shiro’s and steers him down the hall toward the sleeping quarters. 

~~

In the morning, Hunk’s pancakes turn out a lot fluffier than Shiro’s. He’s even able to cook them into cute shapes. Shiro glumly cuts into the frankly adorable chocolate chip puppy pancake on his plate. It steams appealingly. 

“Alright, Paladins! It’s time to get back to basics.” Coran says, twirling his mustache with great importance. 

“The trip to NZ sector will take the better part of a phoeb. After that, we hit No Man’s Land. It’s littered with dead and dying star systems. Time… moves differently there. I don’t know what we’ll find, but it’s likely to be dangerous. We need to be prepared.” Keith looks at all of them while he talks, but his arms remain crossed tightly over his chest, fingers digging into his arms the only visible sign of his distress. Shiro feels them, like fingertips squeezing into his chest cavity. 

“Mornings will be dedicated to physical training. In the afternoon, we will rotate responsibility for team bonding exercises.” Coran looks triumphant. “According to our very precise and scientific system-” 

“We drew names out of a hat,” Keith interjects dryly- 

“We’ll start with Lance. Then it will be Pidge, Shiro, Myself, and Hunk.” 

Shiro drops his fork. “I’m not sure that I ought to have a turn. What about Keith?” 

“I’m the leader, so you’re stuck with me every day for morning training either way.” It’s impressive, how Keith manages to address him in a perfectly even tone while making eye contact with the salt shaker. 

“It’s only logical,” the Doc points out. “You keep saying _not me, not me._ This is your chance, Shiro. Be you.” 

Shiro shoots her a glare. 

“I think we’ll learn everything we need to know during practice,” Keith says, practically oozing disapproval. “But some of you have been out of combat for years, so you’ll probably need the break.” 

“Hey, don’t look at me!” Lance practically leaps to his feet in outrage. “I’ve been a _farmer,_ look, this is a _wall of muscley steel,_ tell him Pidge-” 

He pauses mid-flex. Shiro can pinpoint the exact moment that Lance remembers that he’s angry with her. The Doc, to her credit, doesn’t even look up from her plate. 

“It’s fine,” Shiro says, before things can spiral any further into an awkwardness abyss. “I’ll think of something.” 

~~

Spoiler: Shiro cannot think of _anything._

~~

It turns out that Keith’s routine is just a loose re-imagining of Blade Training. Coran dubs it KIT- Keith’s Intensive Training. Lance calls it 1000 Ways To Die. Shiro is inclined, for once, to agree with him. 

Shiro is sore in places he doesn’t remember _having_ muscles in. Still, there’s something about the training itself that calls to him. How long has it been since he was able to run a mile without stopping? Two? Three? Four? He pushes and pushes, past when the Doc taps out, bunny hopping off her treadmill and landing on solid deck with wobbly knees. Lance catches her, setting her upright without a word before going back to rubbing at a stitch in his side. He’d fallen out within the first fifteen minutes. 

Five. Six.

Hunk, huffing heavily, guzzles an oddly glittery sports drink as he steps down to stretch out. 

Seven. Eight. Nine-

A hand comes down on the Stop button. The belt beneath his feet slows. Shiro looks up. 

“Cool down,” Keith advises, tossing him a towel.

It’s a pattern, Shiro realizes with frustration. Target practice with blasters- _real_ space blasters, oh my _god_ and push ups and sit ups and heavy bag and Keith, at every turn, pulling him up short. 

It’s not punishment. Keith has never been petty. It’s a lack of trust, of course. That Shiro can’t be trusted to know his own limits, to set his own performance. To be helpful, in times of trouble ahead. 

It sucks, he hates it, but it does leave him a bit more functional at the end of day one. Comparatively, anyway, 

“I literally want to die. Please, Hunk. Please step on my trachea.” Lance begs from somewhere on the floor in the corner. The Doc, crawling across the room, knees Lance accidentally-on purpose in the thigh on the way. 

“Ow! Trachea, I said trachea!” 

She collapses in a dramatic heap at Shiro’s feet. 

“Yes?” 

She taps an SOS in morse code into the floor without picking up her head. 

Shiro grins. He looks up just then, catching Keith’s eye. Keith's mouth had also been threatening to turn up at the corners, but it smoothes out when he notices Shiro looking. Instead, he gives a curt nod and busies himself with clearing up equipment. Shiro stifles a sigh. 

“Up,” the Doc demands. 

Obediently, Shiro leans down to scoop her up. She sits on one shoulder, like a small child or a monkey, heels dug in uncomfortably to help maintain balance. 

“I want one of those,” Lance sulks from the floor. “Why can’t I get a Shiro? Everyone else gets one.” 

“There’s probably still a couple of me floating around in space somewhere,” Shiro points out cheerfully. “Maybe you’ll luck out.”

A crumpling, screeching sort of sound comes from the front of the room. Keith has punched the door control panel with sudden uncontrolled violence. It spits a few sad sparks, several light up buttons trying their feeble best to continue to glow. The door opens with a screechy sound and stays that way. Slowly, he pulls his fist back, examining his knuckles. Even from some feet away, Shiro can see the blood welling up. He’s split the skin down to the bone. 

Keith nods at it, as if the injury confirms something very droll and unimportant, then steps through the now permanently open doorway. 

With a small tsk of consternation, Coran wipes clear the small whiteboard at the front of the training deck. Carefully, he writes in Altean. Shiro’s been studying, so he can just make out the words. ____ Days Without Injury. Coran writes in a big fat zero. 

~~

Lance’s team bonding activity is a complete bust. He’d planned Charades, but most of the team can barely raise their arms for the gestures. Whenever he and the Doc make eye contact, they take turns bristling with irritation and looking deeply, unjustifiably wounded. 

And the less said about Keith, the better. The bandage around his right hand is all Shiro can look at. 

“Can we pretend we’ve bonded and go pass out now?” Lance snipes twenty minutes in. 

“It’s your night, Lance,” Keith points out. 

“Yeah, okay. It’s my night. I’m calling it.” He sweeps from the room and the Doc pretends not to watch him go. Keith is next, leaving with a half-hearted wave over his shoulder. 

“Don’t mind it,” Hunk says consolingly. “He’s at an awkward phase.” 

“He’s twenty-six,” Shiro says flatly. 

“It’s a difficult age,” Hunk nods knowingly. 

“Don’t look at me,” the Doc snaps. “I told you it was a bad idea hiding it.” 

“I know,” Shiro agrees. “But I thought it would be easier.” 

“Nothing about this is going to be easy,” the Doc says, a little more kindly. “What do you want from him?” 

“You know,” Shiro says helplessly. “You _know._ But I can’t. I’m _dying._ ” 

They head toward the sleeping quarters together. Hunk pats his shoulder once before going into the room he shares with Lance. In their own room, Shiro and Doc get ready for bed without talking, but once the lights are out and things are quiet, Shiro slips.

“I wish he didn’t hate me.” Shiro stares up at the ceiling in the dark. 

“He doesn’t hate you.” The Doc’s voice is quiet and certain. “I don’t hate Lance, and Lance doesn’t hate me, and you don’t hate Keith, and Keith doesn’t hate you.” 

Shiro laughs a little, despite himself. “Yeah.” 

“You know why he’s holding you back?” The Doc asks, her voice going drowsy and soft. “Because he asked me.” 

“Asked you what?” 

“About the nanobots… and the treatment… and…” 

“And?” Shiro prods. 

“And… he’s looking out for you. So… it’ll be okay. Just be… yourself.” 

They sleep. 

~~

Lance makes it seventeen minutes on the treadmill without collapsing. 

“A new record for you.” Keith says approvingly, nodding at Coran who makes a notation on a clipboard. Lance flips him off. 

Instead of pushing himself, Shiro does what he’s asked and spends the time between working on flexibility exercises instead. Things aren’t any less uncomfortable with Keith, but he isn’t told to knock it off this time either. When Keith is walking Hunk through chest presses, the Doc sends Shiro a thumbs up. 

The Doc’s bonding activity is also a flop. A light hearted bit of bickering over the video game she’s set up devolves into a heated, ugly thing. 

“You can’t spam an uppercut combo, Pidge! That’s cheating!”

“It’s not against the rules,” she snaps. 

“Well, it should be! I shouldn’t have to _say_ every little thing for you to know when something was really messed up! It’s common sense!” Lance is standing now and the Doc is too, one foot up on a low table to try and give herself a little more leverage. 

Shiro starts forward but stops when he feels a light barely-there touch to the small of his back. He can see Hunk hovering nervously in front and Coran is downing a bottle of nunvill at the bar so strong that his eyes are watering… so it’s Keith. Keith, voluntarily touching him. Shiro stills obediently. 

“I’m sorry!” the Doc yells, face red. 

Lance hesitates. 

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, in a lower voice. “I didn’t know what else to do.” 

“Just tell me.” Lance says. “You could have told me, I thought you knew you could tell me anything, it wouldn’t change-” 

He reaches out at the last word, fingers brushing her elbow and the Doc jumps back, controller flying. 

“I can’t,” she nearly sobs, and runs out of the room. Lance, dazed, leaves too- but in the opposite direction. 

“You know, I got a feeling they weren’t talking about the video game.” Hunk says conversationally. It occurs to Shiro suddenly that he doesn’t feel Keith at his back any longer. He chances a glance backwards. 

Keith is gone. 

“Well, tomorrow’s a new day.” Coran says. He sounds maybe a little drunk. He’s cuddling the bottle of nunvill. 

“Yep. Strike three and we’re out.” Shiro sinks into the couch. 

“Aw, no. You can’t go into it like that. Have a little faith.” 

“I have zero faith.” Shiro says, eyes closed. 

“Well I’ve got enough for the both of us.” Coran coughs. “Three of us. Sorry, Coran.” 

“Quite right. I’m support.” Coran says with great dignity. “I supported Allura and I will support all of you. We made some tough choices. Very tough. But I decided! No matter what it takes. No matter what it cost.” 

“That’s sweet and also sort of ominous, so let’s move on.” Hunk says agreeably. “Look, you just need to think about this for a second. There’s two key points to successful bonding. Set your goal and avoid the previous mistakes.” 

“Isn’t bonding the goal?” Shiro asks, but he does sit up straight at least. 

“Sure, but you need something more specific. What do you want to happen, in a perfect world?”

“I want Keith to have a good time.” Shiro says immediately. 

“Okay. That’s good. Specific. Alright. So then, what went wrong with Lance’s activity?” 

“It was too much work and flapping about.” Coran mimics some of Lance’s more outlandish poses. “Not at all dignified like a proper Altean game.” Shiro and Hunk exchange a look and decide unanimously to continue. 

“And Pidge?”

“The Doc’s activity took too much prior knowledge. The only ones who are any good at that game are her and Lance.” 

“Exactly. So you want something Keith will like, something that everyone can do and won’t be frustrating after a long day of training-” 

Shiro stands up suddenly. “I’ve got it!” He grins. “But… I’m gonna need some help if we’re going to have it ready on time.”

“Count me in, buddy.” 

They high five. 

~~

Neither Hunk nor Shiro are in top form the next day. Keith seems a bit suspicious at the way they keep yawning in tandem, but with the Doc and Lance spitting snide barbs from opposite sides of the room, he’s got his hands full. 

“Sorry,” Shiro says automatically when his wobbly and pathetic plank gives way unimpressively. 

“It’s fine.” Keith says, equally robotic. Then he hesitates. “I’m glad you aren’t pushing it,” he says. Shiro blinks up at him. Keith’s eyes are fixed on Lance’s form, though his gaze is a bit far away. 

“Um… Keith, buddy, _tyrant,_ it’s definitely been a minute-”

“Go for two.” Keith says quickly. 

“I’ll try to cut back…. Thanks for looking out for me.” Shiro says shyly. 

Keith starts, but says nothing. His shoulders are tense. 

A beat. 

“ _Okay_ it’s definitely definitely definitely been two minutes-”

“Go to failure.” Keith says flatly. Lance swears as his arms give out. 

Hunk gives Shiro a water bottle and an encouraging smile. “Go time,” he says. 

~~

“Cupcakes.” 

Six neat stacks with tubs of colorful frosting. 

“Cupcake decorating,” Shiro corrects, feeling his neck heat up as they look at him. “Hunk helped me put these together last night. There’s colored sugar and some candy melts and molds too.” 

“Wow. That is… a really great idea, Shiro.” the Doc beams up at him. 

“They smell really good,” Lance agrees. “What kind are they?” 

“Hummingbird,” Keith says. He picks one up and dunks it top-down into a bowl of red frosting. He takes a bite. Shiro nearly holds his breath. 

“Can’t even taste the banana.” Keith smiles at him.

And that's it for him. It's no good, he knows. He's _not_ Keith's Shiro.

But that is Shiro's Keith.

Shiro picks up a cupcake and a piping bag of blue icing.


	5. In the Stars

~~

Things get easier, after that. 

Sort of. 

The Doc and Lance still manage to avoid each other for the most part, careful to leave one of the others between them at meal times and during activities. Keith tolerates it more or less, only quietly insistent when it comes to team exercises. 

“You can be as petty as you like _outside_ this room,” Keith informs them flatly the morning after the cupcake social. “In here we are all Paladins of Voltron.” Keith looks at each of them in turn, lingering on Shiro deliberately. Shiro flexes his fingers at his sides, unwilling to argue the point. They just need a body, he reasons. A substitute Shiro, as it were. He can manage that much.No need to be pedantic. 

“Whatever you say, fearless leader,” the Doc mutters, squaring her shoulders. 

“You know me.” Lance slides into a side lunge, stretching out. “Consummate professional.” 

The Doc rolls her eyes but also drops down into warm ups without further protest. 

Individually, their abilities vary. Keith leads easily in stamina, dexterity and strength, lifting weights as though the artificial gravity was set to half-measures. The Doc, Lance, and Hunk have been out of combat for years- and it shows. Their responses are slowed, muted. Lance nearly snaps his ankle, coming out of a forward roll incorrectly during agility drills. Keith reaches out lazily, catching him by the back of the shirt and pulling him up with one hand and little effort. Lance huffs. 

“Slow down, sharpshooter,” Keith warns, not unkindly. 

“I know what I’m _trying_ to do,” Lance explains, frustrated. He brushes himself off with great exaggeration, as though to brush off Keith’s concern. “It’s the doing it.” 

“You’ll get there.” Keith promises. “You all will.” 

Hunk gives a thumbs up, leaning face-first into a support column, letting the cool metal of the ship press against his sweaty face. 

“Partnered drills,” Keith announces next. “Against the drones. Three drones, set to level two.” 

“Who’s partnering?” The Doc asks cautiously. 

“Everyone.” Keith says firmly. “Five minutes, and we’ll switch. At the end, Coran will tally the scores. Remember, you want to land as many hits as possible, but each time one strikes you, it’ll deduct from your score and freeze your weapon for ten seconds.” 

“I remember, I remember,” Lance grouses. 

“I don’t,” Shiro says gently. 

A pause. 

“Then I guess it’s up to me to teach you,” Lance says grinning. “Hey- since you never got promoted, doesn’t that mean you’re still just a Captain?” 

“Shall I refer to you by rank, Lieutenant Commander McClain?” Shiro asks archly. 

“Pretty sure if you do Lance is going to shoot himself in the foot by accident,” Hunk advises, stepping back behind the observation screen with the others. 

Black and Blue have a respectable score between them. Lance has range and flexibility, but he tends to panic and his reflexes limited to a set 90 degree range. Switch and go- The Doc is clever, spotting openings and strategizing on the fly, but she tires quickly, making too many mistakes to be really effective. Hunk communicates well but he is too slow. They manage to limp through the exercises without completely embarrassing themselves- until it cannot be delayed any longer. Lance and the Doc are paired to face the drones. 

“Duck,” the Doc advises once it’s begun, and Lance obeys seamlessly. The drone above his head flashes with a successful hit from her small blaster. Lance jerks his head left and she moves, drops into a roll- the same one that he’d messed up earlier, executed perfectly. He picks off the two ahead and behind her with only the smallest grimace acknowledging her showboating. 

In the end, they have the highest score by far. 

They still make Shiro sit between them at dinner. 

“Ah well, Number one. Reno wasn’t built in a day, you know.” Coran says consolingly in the kitchen after. 

“Technically correct, and yet so very wrong,” Hunk shakes his head, amused. 

“We’re running low on a few things,” Shiro notes, tidying away the leftovers. 

“Yeah, Pidge’s Station isn’t on a major hub. We’ve got our last big supply pick up at the Grelle Moonbase tomorrow.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Hm. I guess we forgot to say- since we planned out the course with a different Shiro.” 

“Oh.” Shiro tries to sound neutral. Both Coran and Hunk look at him consideringly. “...what?”

“Nothing! Nothing… bad, just. I forgot this you hasn’t met him.” Hunk turns back to the dishes. “ _That’s_ sure gonna be interesting.” 

~~

“Yeaaaah, I’m gonna have to keep those two from self-destructing in the forty doboshes it takes to breach the artificial atmosphere.” Hunk jerks a thumb at where the Doc and Lance wait, turned to face opposite directions pointedly. “ _And_ we need both cruisers to carry all the supplies back up. Coran has to stay here and maintain orbit, we’re too big for a quick in-and-out dock.” 

“I could stay,” Shiro proposes, but weakly. He keeps glancing out of the transparent sides of the ship. Dark, and egg shaped, and _interesting._ The moon itself is blue and hazy from the thorin-rich atmosphere, the dark dome encasing the Moonbase, transforming it into an inhabitable space that attracts transport from all over the sector. It was one of the first stable spaceports after the fall of the great Galra Empire, mostly because the Blades took it over as a stronghold before Daibazzal’s economy stabilized.

Not that Shiro had stayed up all night reading up on the file via datapad instead of sleeping. 

“We’ll both go,” Keith says. “It’s better to have a co-pilot on standby. Just in case.” 

Lance makes a face and starts to needle but the Doc leans over, smacking him lightly with the back of her hand so that he shuts up. He looks more startled than angry at the sudden, almost friendly contact, but she isn’t looking at him. She’s looking at Shiro. 

Ah. 

Keith doesn’t need a co-pilot. Why would he? But if Shiro goes, he needs a babysitter. New artificial gravity and atmospheric generator systems. Could interact badly with his nanobots. Safer, actually, to stay onboard with Coran, but- 

Shiro wants to go. 

They all know that. 

Dying wish and all. 

Shiro follows Keith onto his Galran cruiser. Kosmo stays on the ship with Coran- they’ll need every inch of space for the cargo. Keith slides into the co-pilot’s chair and waits. 

“What did Hunk say, forty doboshes?” Keith asks casually. “I’ve done thirty five, before.” A sharp little glance from the corner of his eye as Shiro starts pre-checks. 

Shiro makes it in twenty-seven. 

The cruiser slides into the dark egg-shaped dome- selective shielding created through repurposed teludav tech. The base inside is glowing, lights purple to blue, silhouette of structures oddly rounded and connected by long, thin, spindly tunnel-limbs between. It looks like an enormous, many-eyed spider. 

Space. This is space. This is space and Shiro is here, piloting, flying, seeing, _living._

“How did I see you fly and not know it was you?” Keith breaks the silence for the first time. His eyes are bright with the excitement of flight, the same boyish, breathless look from their first hoverbike race. The lights reflect a deep violet behind his eyes. The egg shield is transparent from the inside, so he is backed by starlight. 

Beautiful. 

“I didn’t want you to know,” Shiro admits quietly. 

“Were you ever going to say?”

Shiro doesn’t answer. That’s an answer of it’s own, he knows. 

Keith laughs, small, like a bitter exhale. “Yeah. I guess I wouldn’t tell me either.” He turns then to look out at the lights. 

They dock and disembark without further conversation. 

~~

“Are we not loading up?” Shiro asks, bewildered, as they meet up with the others and head into the city proper. 

“Nah, the Blades have crews for that kind of stuff. They’re a lot more efficient than us- and charge for it too.” Hunk grins. “Good thing we got that hook up.” Keith pretends not to hear. “We’re gonna pay a social call while they’re working.” 

“You have friends this part of the world?” Shiro asks politely. 

The Doc and Hunk exchange a glance. “Friend.” The Doc echoes, sounding amused. 

“Woo buddy, you are in for a _treat,_ ” Lance laughs, hooking an arm around Shiro’s shoulders. 

~~

Shiro is aware that there are many different lifeforms out in the universe, and that it is not his place to criticize design, function, or attractiveness- certainly not with his own human body in constant revolt. 

Still, it’s hard not to stare.

The alien is tall, slim, sinewy and columned, with multiple arms, pink eyes, and a rather owl-like face. The lab around him is subdued in comparison- certainly nowhere near so bizarre as The Station when the Doc’s on a science bender. 

Shiro feels a little better when the alien stares back. He waves one hand negligently and the Galra assistants withdraw without a word, although they do quietly make a gesture of respect when passing Keith, he notices. Keith takes it in stride, nodding his acknowledgement and watching the scene unfold. 

“Slav-” Hunk begins to greet the alien but he ignores the Paladins, sliding closer to study Shiro more fully, only a few feet away. The movement ripples his skin, which is covered in something thin and fibrous, neither fur nor true feathers. Amazing. 

“What have you done to yourself?” Slav asks abruptly. 

Shiro, confused, takes a half step back. This seems to be the wrong move, as Slav skitters closer with shocking speed. It reminds Shiro of millipedes, which sometimes got in through the pipes at the Garrison, scattering away from the shampoo dispensers they called home between scheduled shower times. 

Disconcerting, to say the least. 

Still, Keith is still, arms crossed over his chest and posture relaxed, and the Doc is slouching a little, but doesn’t seem to think Shiro is in any kind of mortal peril. He tries to relax. 

Then he feels a sharp, sudden pain along his right arm. There and then gone. By the time he looks down, one of Slav’s creepy, stubby limbs is withdrawing a small syringe of his blood, another briskly disinfecting the wound and slapping a small square adhesive bandage over it. 

“Ow?” Shiro rubs the spot absently. Another one of Slav’s limbs rips the bandage away- with a few of Shiro’s fine arm hairs to boot. “ _Ow!_ ” Underneath, the skin is unblemished, pinprick completely healed. 

“Hm,” Slav looks at the wound in dissatisfaction before turning back to his laboratory set up. 

“You know, it’s considered polite to _ask_ before taking someone’s blood sample, Slav.” Lance points out sarcastically. 

“Why? He would have allowed it in 97.3% of all universes.” Slav dips what looks like the tip of an old fashioned fountain pen into a glowing violet liquid before combining a drop with some of Shiro’s blood in a petri dish. “And in 2% of the other universes, he would have been an android without blood at all, so it would not have been successful.” 

“What about the other .7?” Shiro asks, fascinated despite himself. 

Slav pauses in his work to look at Shiro again and harrumphs, though he doesn’t sound displeased. It reminds Shiro a bit of his grandfather, or what he remembers of the old man in his childhood. Crotchety, impatient, wise, and somehow terribly interesting.

“We never meet, in those.” Slav peers through what looks like a spectron microscope, but with additional glowing tubing all around it that pulses like fairy lights. “You remain on KK-189 until the quintessence field is harvested in sixty three years, and then your pod disintegrates and you die.” 

Lance gives a low long whistle. This time Keith smacks him, and none too gently. His face is tight. “You knew he was there?” 

Slav snaps his head up from the display, making a deep clicking noise of distress. His attention is fixed on the Doc. “ _This_ is what you wanted my serum for? Do you know what you have done?” 

The Doc avoids looking at Shiro or Slav. “I know,” she says. 

“Slav-”

Slav huffs impatiently slithers across to a bare wall. He begins gesturing as though writing, but without making contact. The wall lights up with numbers, glowing in different colors, mathematical equations that scatter across the surface, some propelling to the edges of the wall, some careening out to disappear in the margins, some glowing, rearranging into one solid mass. 

“Oh,” the Doc exhales. 

“Huh. So does that part mean-?” 

“Exactly.” The Doc and Hunk nod at each other. Keith looks ready to explode. 

“Keith,” Shiro says, involuntarily reaching out and stopping short. The movement catches his attention, though, so Keith looks at him instead. He’s tense, and his eyes are a little wild- pupils a little slitted? 

That’s new. 

“How could he know? There’s no way to account for _every_ variable difference in every universe. Maybe I was there. Maybe that Shiro really was the first Shiro. Maybe I was replaced by an android.” 

“Exactly!” Slav slams a tiny limb against the board and all the equations scatter to the other walls, pinging off each other, glowing red and imploding in silent sparks. 

“I have _got_ to get me one of these,” the Doc whispers longingly. 

“So how many universes do you treat me instead?” Shiro asks. “Where I don’t make the Doc keep it a secret.” 

“.4 percent.” 

“And how many of those are successful?” 

A pause. 

(That’s an answer of it’s own, he knows.) 

“So no harm done,” Shiro says gently, moving to stand just behind the Doc, putting one hand gently against the small of her back. “I’m just happy to be here.” 

Slav lashes the tip of his lower half, rather like a displeased snake. It’s brief, but noticeable agitation. 

“I have done the calculations that you have requested,” he announces, changing the subject abruptly. “Though of course they may be _worthless_ with all these extemporaneous variables. They are in the front lab. My assistants will upload the information to your datapads in the archive room.” 

“Thank you,” Hunk says loudly, steering Keith back down the hall. Keith looks like he wants to resist, but Lance hooks him by the other arm and he is frog-marched to archives. 

“I better go make sure they don’t get blood on the uplink,” the Doc says thoughtfully, moving to follow. 

Shiro lingers behind. 

Slav moves around the room briskly, disposing of the needle and sample and wiping the walls clear of quintessence math with a wave of his limbs. 

“Can I ask one more thing?” Shiro asks tentatively. 

“You may.” 

“How many… I mean. Could you calculate…” Shiro struggles. “Me and Keith. The Black Paladin and the Red Paladin. Or the Black Paladin and the Black Paladin. Or… you know. Is there any universe where we... get to be together...?” 

“He saved me from Beta Traz,” Slav says, apropos of nothing. “It was an ill advised mission, though successful in this timeline. Fortunately.” 

“Keith?” 

“You. Or, the other you. Though he did not like me very much. It is a shame, as I have been told that I have a very winning personality in at least 63/100th calculated universes.” 

“Yeah?” Shiro asks, amused. 

“Perhaps because I reminded him of himself. I was- not well. Torture. Well.” Slav shrugs, an interesting rippling effect that moves down his limbs. “Paralyzed by indecision, the opposite of him, perhaps. He chose to push. Always push. He pushed me and that was, I think, for the best. In hindsight.” 

“I don’t understand,” Shiro says gently. “I’m sorry.” 

Slav waves a limb dismissively. “The math, it helps. Informed decisions, optimal results, yes? But action, that is most vital. The math, it is always changing. It can be wrong. I have… been wrong. Before.” 

“So Keith and I…” 

“Never once, in all my calculations, have the Paladins been successful in romantic pursuits together.” Slav stops his fussing then and turns to look at Shiro fully. “But I have never done the math for _you._ Understand? _Make your own odds, Paladin._ ” 

Shiro exhales slowly and nods. A voice calls to him, from the hallway. “Thanks. Thank you. I- I have to go.”

Slav turns back to his station, cleaning and clearing, stacking and rearranging obsessively. “Yes, yes. I hope this is a universe where I see you again, Takashi Shirogane.” 

Shiro grins. “Yeah. Me too, Slav.” 

~~ 

“Huh. He’s a pretty interesting guy, right? Did he and I get along before?” Shiro asks on the walk back to the dock. 

He has no idea why all of them start laughing. 

~~

Keith flies them back because the weight distribution is slightly off with all the additional cargo. Shiro doesn’t mind. He’s always loved watching Keith fly. 

Loved. Loves. Will love. Every kind of love. Affectionate. Familiar. Romantic. Devoted. 

Would he have searched for Keith like Keith searched for him? Would he have hoped and waited and believed and fought? 

He wants to say yes. 

Shiro wants to say yes. 

“I’m sorry,” he says a few minutes after take off. “I should have told you.” 

Keith shakes his head. “You don’t owe me anything, Shiro.” 

“I know what you did- how much you did for… me. Not me. But… you know.” Shiro stops, self-consciously. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Keith says, but not dismissively. “You or him or whichever Shiro. I do it because I want to. None of you owe me anything. Ever. Okay?” 

“You’re not an obligation to me, Keith. That isn’t how I feel about you.” 

“Do you really want to have this conversation?” Keith asks, gruff but genuine. “Because I will. Or we can put it off, or we can ignore it completely.” 

“Because I’m dying.” Shiro says. 

“Because you’re you. And you could live for a hundred years and decide that you don’t want this and that would be _fine._ I’m not unhappy, being in love with you.” 

It’s so easy, how Keith says it. So obvious. So freely given. Whether or not they end up together. As long as Shiro lives. After he’s gone. 

It’s never been a problem with Keith loving him. He knows Keith, and Keith is used to losing. Every moment they have now is enough for Keith. Love, togetherness, making memories of more and more and more. Keith isn't Lance, and it won't break him when it ends. He'll smile in the face of it, sweet and grateful every minute. Keith's strong that way. 

Shiro is the weak one. Having this- weeks, months, happiness… and losing it. Saying goodbye. Having to leave. 

Dying. 

He _can’t._

“I’m selfish,” Shiro confesses. “I’m sorry. I’m… too selfish.” 

“Yeah,” Keith's voice, warm and affectionate. “That’s fine too.” 

And Shiro turns away to look at the stars. 

~~


	6. Dear Darling

One phoeb. 

“One of your earth Junes,” Coran calls it, and Shiro doesn’t have the heart to explain why that’s not how you say it. Keith cuts his gaze across to Shiro anyway, quick, private amusement, then gone again. Shiro remembered when it had been like that, a long time ago. An eyebrow quirk at Adam’s expense when he was fretting over Shiro’s less than regulation towel folding skills, a corner smile at Iverson’s funny way of walking, knees brought up just a hair higher than natural at all times. 

He missed this. He missed Keith. 

It’s only possible to be tense and angry for so long. Humans are adaptable. Shiro knows that better than most, though not, perhaps, as well as some. 

(“I miss him,” Hunk sighs one morning. “I‘m glad you’re here, but sometimes I’ll look up at breakfast and it’s like there’s two people missing.”)

The Other Shiro earned his happy ending, Shiro reminds himself. That Shiro chose to stay behind and this Shiro is going down fighting. 

Drills and drills and drills. 

Lance, petty though he seems, doesn’t seem capable of holding on to real anger when it comes to people he cares about. He starts sitting next to the Doc deliberately at mealtimes. He includes her in conversations. They manage to trounce the others in Charades three weeks running. 

The Doc, for her part, is cordial but cool. 

“Why are you still angry?” Shiro asks her one night before bed. 

“I’m not angry,” she says, and that’s all she will say on the matter. 

Coran’s nights are dedicated to the art of Altean Formal Dancing, something that he demonstrates with great enthusiasm and the others mimic with limited success and mounting frustration. 

The third time that Hunk drops Lance he lets out a frustrated yell. 

“No, no, no! Coran, I am sorry but this is _not_ dancing.” He uses Keith like a ladder to pull himself upright, something that Keith tolerates with only a single, sharp, displeased glare. 

“The Mimbly Wimbly Minuet is _traditional,_ ” Coran explains, aghast. “All the highest echelon of the Universe participated-”

“Thousands of years ago, Coran. Sorry, but you’re basically doing the space electric slide here,” the Doc interjects, stepping away from Shiro’s large and heavy feet. “Watch it, Shiro, I’m a fucking lady.”

“Sorry,” Shiro says sheepishly. “This is a lot different than a Garrison Cotillion.” 

Lance, still leaning heavily on Keith’s shoulder, brightens at that. “Shiro! My man, brilliant as ever.” He hooks an arm through Keith’s suddenly, spinning him until they’re facing each other. 

“Lance…” Keith says in a warning tone, but he permits Lance to rearrange his limbs until the two are standing in promenade position. 

“No, no, remember? Neta-Zuu Cotillion for the cluster?”

“Lance, _no-_ ” Keith is swept into what looks suspiciously like a tango position, and with only a few muttered curses steps into the routine flawlessly. Down and left, arms up and spin, clap and kick. It’s fast and silly and repetitive- things that Shiro can definitely do. He raises an eyebrow in Hunk’s direction. Hunk, taking notice, sweeps into a bow. 

“Well, if you can’t beat them…” Coran shakes himself off and snaps his fingers, the music switching to something a little more punchy. “Reminds me of the Rockavolli Two-Step. Number Five?” 

The Doc extends her elbow for Coran to take gracefully and soon all three couples are rocketing around the room, bumping and spinning. At some point the partnering switches, and Shiro finds that for all his wild acrobatics, Coran lands each step perfectly on beat- and never steps on his heels. 

Around and around they go, breathless and dizzy. 

“Well?” Shiro risks asking when he’s face to face with Keith. 

“More fun than a Neta-Zuu Cotillion,” he grins. 

“More fun than a Garrison Cotillion, too.” Shiro agrees. 

“What are those like?” Hunk wonders, taking Keith’s place again at the next chorus. 

“You’ve never been?” Shiro ducks down, narrowly missing Lance’s widely swinging arms. 

“Too busy saving the universe,” Lance sings out, matching the tone if not the words to the Altean Club Music currently blasting. 

Shiro snaps his fingers two or three times, until the music switches to something stately and orchestral. “Keith,” he says, holding out a hand. Keith, without missing a beat, reaches past Hunk and Lance, letting Shiro draw him close. 

“You leading?” Keith asks, amused. 

“No way, Black Paladin.” Shiro grins, moving into closed position. Keith’s right hand curls around Shiro’s upper arm, near the shoulder, left hands meeting outward as Shiro’s slips around Keith’s shoulder. It ought to be intimate, but Garrison regulation dancing is stiff and formal, their posture is so correct and perfect that the result is angular and rather silly looking. Hunk still wolf-whistles. 

“And a one-two-three-!” the Doc counts off. Keith and Shiro waltz round and round the room. Hunk and Coran join them, after a cursory study.

“Well?” Lance asks, failing to keep his voice from puppy-dog hopefulness. 

“I’m not good at real dancing,” the Doc says, not-quite looking at him. 

“C’mon wallflower,” Lance holds out his hand. “You’re good at everything.”

The Doc, hesitatingly, puts her hand in his. 

The song ends and the next is a little slower, a little more muted. Shiro feels himself relaxing, elbows softening, gaze drawn downward as he lowers his neck slightly. Keith is looking up at him. 

“What?” Keith asks when Shiro doesn’t look away. 

“Nothing.” Shiro says automatically. “You got tall.” 

There’s not much distance between them. Keith’s hair is coming loose a little, around his face, and he smells nice. Shampoo and sweat-clean. 

“I told you I’d catch up,” Keith says warmly. “Old Timer.” 

“Hey. That’s you now, isn’t it?” Shiro admonishes. 

“Is it?” Keith muses. “Not used to that, I guess.”

“How…” Shiro stops himself. 

“Shiro.” 

“How do you get used to it? Me… him. I don’t know what I’m trying to say-” 

“I don’t think about it,” Keith interrupts. “I’m just not the type. I get angry and then I get over it and then I move on. It’s useful but short term- it causes a lot of problems.” 

Then he jerks his head to the side, his only warning before he leads them to the side, still twirling, away from the impromptu dance studio. Hunk and Coran have already vanished, waltzing toward the kitchens. Shiro chances a glance backwards to see Lance pulling the Doc close, resting his chin against the top of her head and closing his eyes in contentment. 

Once they pass the open doorway, Keith drops his arms to his sides and they fall into step easily together.

“When things are off, I don’t dig. Something in the desert calls me, I go. I’m half-Galra, I have to live with that. My mom turns up, at least I have some family now. Shiro comes back and I don’t want him anymore? There must be something wrong with me.” Keith glances at him sidelong. 

“Keith…”

“I thought I was just hung up on my first love, you know? This weird idealized version of you that wasn’t you. But it was. Even as Take, you were… It doesn’t matter. If I had been a different type, I could have figured it out sooner. I could have found you sooner.” 

Shiro reaches out, hand on Keith’s shoulder, stopping them both. “It’s not your responsibility to save me,” Shiro says gently. “I’m not your burden.”

“It isn’t like that.” Keith frowns. “Wouldn’t you do anything, for someone you love?” 

Shiro’s breath catches in his throat. 

“I can stop talking about it,” Keith offers, watching him closely. Mutely, Shiro shakes his head. He doesn’t drop his hold and after a moment, Keith’s hand covers his. 

“I’m in love with you,” Keith tells him. “You don’t have to say anything or do anything, but I won’t let you die without knowing that somebody loves you.”

Shiro blinks and tears fall, unbidden. He starts when he realizes he is crying. Keith reaches up with his free hand to touch them, his eyes impossibly soft. 

Shiro’s world is temporary. He is temporary. His health, his family, his lovers, his friends, his identity. Borrowed time. The compass of his life spinning aimlessly, grasping for something- real. Something solid. The arrow pointing north. 

Keith. 

And he breaks. 

Keith’s fingertips brush Shiro’s cheek. Shiro pulls him in by the shoulder, arm slipping around his back possessively. His other hand comes up, keeping Keith’s hand cradled against his face as he leans down and in for a kiss. 

Keith is north. All roads lead to Keith, and Shiro is weak. 

Keith’s free arm goes around Shiro’s waist and they kiss, again and again, desperate and wet and tearful and Shiro’s sorry because Keith deserves the best- the happiest kind of kiss, but all Shiro has is love and sadness. 

“I love you,” Shiro says when they part. “I’m sorry. Keith, I love you.” His breath shudders in between sobs. 

He’s still dying. 

Keith holds him for a long time. 

~~

Hunk and Coran quietly rearrange the rooms. 

It’s enough, being in the same room for a while. Then the same bed. 

“We don’t have to,” Keith tells him quietly that first night. “Tonight or ever.” 

“Is that what you want?” Shiro asks the dark room. “Would that make you happy?” 

“I’d be happy just looking at you from across the room,” Keith says honestly. 

~~

Their training exercises are becoming more like elaborate exercise routines. Lance gets reckless, and only Shiro’s steady cool headedness keeps them from tanking. 

“I think that’s enough. Aren’t we due at NZ in the next few varga?” Shiro asks, pulling off his face-shield.

“Since when were you so hot headed?” Keith asks Lance pointedly where he’s sprawled, panting on the floor. “That maneuver could have taken out at least two of your teammates.” 

“Pot, kettle,” Shiro says, helping Lance to his feet. 

“Still, that’s a high score.” The Doc grins at the rankings. 

“I remember this being a lot harder,” Hunk remarks to Coran. “Like riding a bike, huh?” 

Coran doesn’t answer. He’s frowning at something on his datapad. 

“What?” The Doc sidles up to him, toweling down her sweat-soaked short hair. “Is that a vid-call?” 

“We’re only a few varga away from NZ,” Coran explains. “There’s interference. I can only understand part of the transmission.”

“Let’s hear it,” the Doc suggests, walking to the wall and pressing a button so that a large flat panel emerges from the wall. The others ooh and ahh appropriately. “Slav can’t have all the cool toys,” she preens. 

“Speaking of Slav-” Coran presses a button, transferring the message from his datapad to the wall display. 

Slav blinks at them blankly. “This is a recording,” he says importantly. “I have completed the updated data projection based on the new parameters and-” here a violent bout of static interrupts. “- grave consequences in 78.3% of all calculated universes-” another break. 

“Yeah, that’s Slav,” Lance rolls his eyes. The Doc hushes him, leaning in closer to the monitor, expression intent. 

“This is all because of the Sacred Alteans, and the connection with the crystal that became the Castle of Lions, I cannot overstate the importance of-” Out, again.

“We can’t get a clearer transmission?” Hunk asks. Coran, surprisingly pale, fumbles with the datapad. Slav reappears but the audio is choppy, interspersed with squeals and shrieks of ambient noise amplified. 

“-which is why you see that the Paladin bond is of the utmost importance. If you are to have any chance of success, you must trust each other and form a new bond. A true bond, stronger than before. That is all that I can say. I only hope that this message reaches you in time.” 

The video cuts out. 

~~

Shiro isn’t the Doc and he isn’t Slav but he can plot things out, given enough time. A phoeb or so, to be exact. 

There’s a Shiro out there who’s still on KK-189. In that world, the Other Shiro is here, on the ship, looking for Allura, having to choose between love and duty. And Shiro, for all that he resents that Shiro’s easy movements and his head held high beside someone he has the time to love- 

He has to admire that. 

Maybe there is a point where it makes sense. 

And if it were Keith, or the stars…. 

But now he has both. Just for now. 

Other Shiro will never have that, doesn’t even want it, doesn’t know what he’s missing. 

And Shiro can feel just a little sorry for that.

~~

“This is it, Paladins. Past the barrier into No Man’s Land- an area that is mostly uncharted, with high levels of space-radiation. Communications will be unlikely from this point on. If you have any missives, this is the time to send them.”

A beat. 

“Shiro,” Shiro says. 

“You?” Lance looks puzzled. 

“Oh.” Hunk sits up. “We should send him a vid-message while we still can. Neta-Zuu will relay it to the Coalition HQ on Earth.” 

“That’s funny, I was thinking about him today.” The Doc tilts her head to the side. 

“Me too,” Lance echoes. “Weird.” 

Coran helps them set up a recording station and one by one, each of them steps inside. Quick messages, cheerful and optimistic and tinged with the nervousness of going off into the unknown. 

And then Keith is holding back the curtain for Shiro. 

“Me?”

“You,” Keith agrees. 

~~

Shiro sits silent for a moment. 

“I’m not sorry I came,” Shiro says finally. “Thank you for letting me. Thank you for being the Shiro I couldn’t have been, then. Thank you for keeping him safe. I-” Shiro stops to take a shuddering breath. He looks up, directly into the camera.

“Take care of him. He’s fragile, and he needs you. And… be happy. You earned it.” 

~~

In the fourth varga of the second quintant of the second phoeb of Coalition year zero-three, at precisely thirty-seven doboshes and ten ticks, the Altean Cruiser piloted by Ambassador Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe and crewed by the former Paladins of Voltron disappeared off all known frequencies into NZ Sector, No Man’s Land. 

Their whereabouts are still unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliffhanger


	7. One Like You

Shiro drums his fingers nervously against the back of his seat as Coran turns the ship past the point of no return. It’s surprisingly anti-climactic; there’s no flashy checkpoint or energy barrier here. 

“Nobody comes out this way for a reason,” Keith says darkly when he asks. “A lot of good ships were lost out this way.” 

Coran, head high and back straight, does not hesitate to steer them further and further into the darkness. 

“You’re not the least bit worried?” Shiro asks, when it’s just the two of them left on the bridge. 

“It’s got a nasty reputation,” Coran allows. “Even before. But there are worse things.” 

“Was it worth it?” Shiro wonders. Then, startled, he blinks at Coran apologetically. To him, this is all theoretical- a last great adventure before the inevitable end. He hadn’t lost anyone, not really- not like that. 

Not like Allura.

Coran, though, doesn’t react. He continues monitoring the ship’s progress through the vidscreens placidly. 

“When everyone is together in one room sometimes, it can be difficult. I keep looking at the door, waiting for her to come in to where she belongs. But she doesn’t. And perhaps she never did belong.” 

Shiro frowns. “They loved her,” he insists. “They miss her.” 

Coran hums a little, thoughtfully. “She wasn’t a paladin at first, you know. She had no connection with any of the lions, outside of their lingering affection for Alfor. It was a necessity when your predecessor disappeared. And I often wonder…” 

“Yes?” Shiro prompts. 

“I wonder if it was ever meant to be. It was for the greater good, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder what… it may have been. In happier times. Her role.” 

Shiro looks down at his arm, at the tiny pin-prick scars of his medi-bracelet from his Garrison days. 

“Happier times,” he echoes.

“You didn’t see. I don’t know if anyone realized. We were always outsiders. Alteans, _aliens._ However she tried and whatever she did, that part would never change. I had hoped when we learned of Keith’s heritage that she might find a connection, but all it did was isolate the team even more. If I had been more certain-” 

“What are you saying?” Shiro asks. “You did the best you could. Allura made her own choices, the best that she could. You can’t live in what could have beens.” 

Coran smiles at Shiro rather sadly. 

“Yes,” he says simply. “I expect you know that well.”

“No.” Shiro shakes his head. “That wasn’t me. Sometimes when we’re all together, I look at the door too. It’s like I’m expecting someone to come in and say ‘alright, that’s enough, time’s up.’ I’m… a substitute. I’m not him. I don’t know how _he_ did it. I don’t think I could have made those hard choices from the start. I’m not that kind of leader.”

“Hard choices,” Coran repeats. “Yes. We all made the hard choices.” 

~~

There’s a lot of space math involved, but the Doc sums it up like this:

Time is fucked out here. 

It seems like a moment, a breath or a blink, and a glance at the clock says it’s been hours. A single day stretches endless and echoey. Sleep is strained. Shiro spends too much time lying in the darkened bunk listening to Keith breathing. He knows that Keith is listening too. 

“Restless?” Hunk asks at the dinner table when Shiro can’t stop tapping his foot. 

“Sorry,” he says automatically, but Lance says it too, where he’s fidgeting in his seat, unable to sit still. 

“I feel it too,” the Doc adds, not looking up from her data pad. “So does Keith.” 

Keith frowns as though offended. 

“Don’t give me that face,” the Doc admonishes without looking up. “You only sit that still when you’re annoyed and trying to look cool about it.” 

Strangely on edge. Why? Nothing has changed over the past week of travel since they’d crossed over into no man’s land. Still, Shiro’s teeth are clenched. It’s as though he’s expecting- something. The air feels heavy, certain. 

He opens his mouth to speak. 

The ship’s shields flare up, sirens blaring to life. As one, the paladins rise from the table. This, Shiro thinks, is the thing. Had they known somehow? Expected it? How? 

“Disturbance in the quintessence field,” the Doc groans, leading the way to the control room. “Obviously!” 

“But we’re not all quintessence sensitive,” Shiro objects. 

“No, but Keith is. And we’re Keith sensitive.” She pulls up the display. 

Lance curses in Spanish. “Those are _space spiders_ ” he yelps.

The ship is covered in wriggling, people-sized drones with too many long and spindly legs. As they watch, several begin tapping at the outside of the ship, pulling and prying at the outside metal. 

“At the rate they’re going, we’re going to lose ship integrity in less than five varga,” Hunk says grimly. 

“They’ve already damaged the remote systems for defenses.” Coran warns, pressing a button demonstrably that does exactly nothing to deter them from prying up the outer metal of their ship’s hull. 

“Suit up,” Keith orders. “Lance, you and Shiro take the eastern airlock. Try to keep them away from the solar generator. Coran, divert power to essential life support and keep the rest in reserve for now. Hunk, you and Pidge take the western airlock. Try to get to the laser canon. There should be a manual override that will let you take control.” 

“Keith?” Shiro asks, unable to help himself. Keith spares him a quick smile. 

“I’ll go north and try to head them off the bridge. We need to find out where they’re coming from.” 

“Shiro,” Lance calls sharply, all traces of his usual casual cheer gone. Shiro turns, jamming his helmet on over his head as he follows down the corridor. Their suits are uniform, black and gray with turquoise highlights, like the bright blue markings Allura left on Lance all those years ago. No paladin suits here, but somehow, wearing the same color is a great comfort to a Shiro who doesn’t feel like he is any color at all. 

A spare. An interchangeable factor. 

“Focus, Shiro,” Lance chides, snapping his long-range blaster into place and turning off the safety. 

“Right,” Shiro agrees, raising his weapon as the door lock opens. 

The space-spiders cluster in close, eyes glittering with lights in different colors and patterns until Shiro is almost dizzy with it. Neatly, he shoots the joints of one, snapping the body from its long legs so that they float away from the ship and into the darkness surrounding, creating a gap in the crowd. Shiro uses a burst of speed from his jet pack to jettison out along the ship’s curve, sliding into that gap. He hooks a leg against one of the maintenance hooks along the outside edge, keeping himself anchored in place. Out here he can see the bright expanse of metal, and the dozens of spiders busily hammering away the ship. Overwhelming. 

“Patience,” Shiro murmurs to himself. He closes his eyes and breathes in. 

He can feel the vibrations as the space spiders gather in, surrounding him. Curious? Murderous? 

Something hot and bright zips by his closed eyelids. Lance, positioned directly outside the airlock, uses Shiro’s distraction to begin picking off the spiders congregating around him. Shiro counts to three and opens his eyes. 

He’s ready. 

Shiro fires in quick bursts, long legs crumbling, spiders rolling against the curved edge of the ship and away. 

“Left,” Lance says through their helmet communicator, and Shiro obeys. “Right.” “Two o’clock.” “Below.” 

And at some point, Shiro realizes, Lance stops speaking, but Shiro is still moving, instinctually, blasting between maintenance nooks to take cover as they fight the spiders away from the ship. He just _knows_ what Lance wants him to do, what he has to do to be safe because _Lance_ knows, the way he knows that the Doc and Hunk are safely busy restoring external power to the main canon. 

The way he, and the others, all freeze when they feel Keith’s grim shock as the spiders still around them. Shiro slowly puts his side arm into its holster as the space-spiders abruptly lose interest in him and the ship. They skitter back from where they came. Several, he notices, drag away the remains of the broken drones, retreating- where, exactly? 

Where Keith is. 

“Guys, come here.” Keith’s message echoes through their helmets with a sudden flash of coordinates- but Shiro notes dimly that he and the others are already on their way. 

Strange.

~~

It’s a Galra ship. 

“Of course it is,” Keith says, voice edged in bitterness. 

“This is an older model,” Hunk says critically. “Look at those thrusters, they’re practically archaic.” 

“The crew?” Shiro asks. Keith and the Doc exchange a dark look. Dead, then. Shiro feels strangely calm. 

There’s a captain’s log. It’s grim. 

Searching for Voltron, the ship entered no man’s land. Time is strange. After what felt like only a few weeks, their ship began to fail, as though it had been traveling for years. Unable to communicate, the life support systems- 

“They’re repair drones,” Shiro realizes, looking out of the ship’s port where it overlooks the drone docks. Several of the space-spiders busily repair their brethren using the salvaged parts. 

“The captain must have overridden their protocol to try and salvage components to fix their life support,” the Doc notes. “But the crew died before it could be fixed- or turned off.” 

“Selfish,” Keith says darkly. “How many ships have they torn apart? How many people did they kill out here?” Shiro watches him.

“They were trying to survive,” Lance says gently. “They didn’t know.”

“They should have known.” Keith’s voice is carefully controlled. “We’ll deactivate them. All of them.”

“The crew,” Shiro says. “What will we do with them?”

Keith looks puzzled. “They’re dead, Shiro.” He jerks his head over toward where one of the bodies is slumped at the controls. The dry atmosphere of the space station has left the bodies well preserved, anyway- hardly any odor, thin stretchy skin stuck to old bones. 

Dead. 

“So what do we do with them?” Shiro asks patiently. 

“We leave them,” Keith says, not understanding. 

Shiro’s hands ball into fists. He counts to three, then releases his fingers. The Doc looks up sharply from where she’d been reading the log. She looks at Shiro but Shiro is looking at Keith. 

“Do the Galra bury their dead?” Shiro asks, fighting to keep his voice even. “Do they cremate? What do we do?” 

“We didn’t exactly ask?” Hunk says, not-quite paying attention. Lance squeezes his shoulder so that he looks up. Shiro is still looking at Keith. 

“.... I don’t know.” Keith admits. “They were the enemy and we were in the middle of a war, Shiro.” 

There’s a hint of a reprimand in there and it strikes Shiro raw. It isn’t his fault that he slept through the war. 

A lot of things aren’t his fault. 

“Well we’re not in a war now, Keith,” Shiro snaps. He turns on his heel and leaves the room. It could be dangerous, this ship from hundreds of years ago, but he can’t care. He’s trembling. 

When he dies, will Keith find a nice planet to bury him? 

Will he go down in battle, the last glimpse blood-soaked and heroic? 

Will he be left to float in space? Cold and alone? 

There’s a skeleton of a young soldier in the med-bay. Her femur is broken, she was probably put into the healing pod for that and when the ship failed, there she stayed. It’s familiar- too familiar. 

The pod. The Doc. 

Left on KK-189, torn to pieces. Would that have been a better or worse place for him to die? 

He’s still looking into the glass when the door behind him opens. He doesn’t have to turn to know it’s Keith. Practical Keith, who still cares enough to come after him, even when Shiro’s behaving like a spoiled child. 

“You’re not,” Keith says. “You’re _not._ I forget sometimes.” He sounds clumsy. 

“Forget what?” Shiro asks the dead girl.

“How to be normal. How to be human. How to… care. Properly.” A hand against the small of his back. Shiro tilts back into it and Keith presses his face against the back of Shiro’s neck. It’s damp. 

Tears. 

Shiro knows, the way he seems to know things now, the way Keith knew what he was thinking without saying- that Keith doesn’t want him to look. So Shiro stays facing away, but he reaches back to comb fingers through Keith’s hair gently, to curl around his ear and keep him close. 

It’s a moment of closeness, in all this death. Precious. 

“I lost a lot,” Keith says quietly after a time. “I thought I lost this too.” 

“This?” 

“You. The you that cared about a messed up puppy of a kid like me. Who cared about… about Adam, and about dreams and about strangers. I loved that about you. I love you.”

And Shiro knows that’s true, _feels_ it. Keith is cool leadership and sexy sharpness, so sometimes it’s hard to remember that he loves Shiro, loves all of them so fiercely and clumsily. And that’s not Keith’s fault either. 

“We’ll lay the bodies out here in medbay,” Shiro says softly. “And we’ll seal it up until someone can come for them. We’ll take the records back for their families. We’ll have the Doc and Hunk take a look at the drone protocol. We can set this up as a repair station, for any ship that comes by. It can be a good memory from a sad thing.” 

The way that Keith’s fingers tighten around Shiro’s middle tell him that Keith understands that perfectly.


	8. Listening

“Go, go, go!” Lance yells, frantically waving his arms, and it’s not because he _needs_ to, he just wants to. It’s a Lance thing. 

The Doc thrums with affectionate annoyance and Lance scoffs. 

“Whatever, you _love me,_ ” he huffs, running past Shiro up the ramp into the cargo bay of Keith’s Galra cruiser that they all think of as Big Red. Spicy, sexy, and classic. Just like Keith, who is bringing up the rear of the two man scouting party, firing blasts over his shoulder as he runs with hardly a glance backward. 

“Gross,” Lance says without heat. “Shiro, please.” 

Shiro frowns annoyance his way, raising his weapon and giving a short burst of covering fire just when Keith needs it to cross the magenta-grass covered meadow they’d touched down into. Just before Keith’s foot connects with the metal ramp, the Doc slams her palm down on the controls, pulling the hatch in. In the cockpit, Hunk turns them skyward. Keith rolls forward seamlessly, landing on his feet inside. Shiro reaches out to steady him, though he knows Keith has perfect balance, like a cat. He just wants to touch him, to make sure Keith is okay. Keith smiles at him warmly. 

“So we’re just… not talking anymore, huh? One teensy little mind melding connection or whatever and we’re all just done with words.” Lance huffs, annoyed. Impulsively, he ducks down where the ramp is still closing, holding himself upright with one arm, firing off a burst of seemingly random shots that connect with the lizard-metal creature attempting to claw their ship out of midair. 

Hunk pulls a hard right with a wave of nausea. How did he end up at the controls? Everybody _knows_ Hunk hates the whole death-defying emergency flight part. And what if the cruiser gets scratched? Keith’s gonna kill him. His fear is a palpable metallic thing. Keith nudges Shiro with his shoulder warmly, then goes to rescue him. Lane gives them another look of disgust. 

“I don’t think anyone seriously expected you to stop talking,” the Doc answers, taking pity on him. 

They dock back onto the main ship at the rendezvous point a few minutes later, carrying the gear back to Coran in engineering. 

“Well done, paladins! We’ve managed to recharge our oxygenation chamber to well over eighty percent. That’ll top us a tiff.” Coran nods, satisfied. 

“And it only took two rounds with Mecha-Godzilla to pull off,” Hunk grins, wiping the sweat off his face with his forearm. The good humored affection zips along them, person to person. 

“Wow.” Shiro shakes his head. “Was it always like this for you guys?” 

A beat. 

“No,” the Doc says, subdued. “We had the paladin bond before, we practiced mind melding and everything but we never connected like this. I have some theories about deep space resonance and lack of magnetic interfaces, but…” 

“Voltron should have acted as an amplifier. Without the castle or our lions… that just doesn’t make sense.” Hunk looks thoughtful. 

“Maybe it’s Shiro?” Lance suggests. “He’s the first Shiro, so maybe that matters.” 

A shifting sense of discontent. Keith’s eyes narrow. 

“No, she’s right,” Shiro says. “I should have a weaker resonance. I can _feel_ where your Shiro ought to go, like a big black space…” He gestures a little. 

“We’ve been following this feeling, but the navigation isn’t precise. And it’s hard to calculate exactly where we should be heading so long as we don’t understand it,” the Doc points out. 

“Yeah, feelings aren’t really quantifiable,” Hunk agrees. 

“So how do we do this?” Lance asks. 

“Coran.” Shiro says. Coran pauses in his work at the oxygenation tanks. 

“Coran?” Lance asks. “He’s not in the paladin bond-” 

“No,” Shiro says. “But-” At a loss for words, he floods the connection with what he does have- feelings, bits, pieces. Wisps of the tug, further into No Man’s Land. Allura. 

“ _Do_ you know something about this bond being stronger? You were around for the last round of paladins. Is this… normal?” Keith asks. 

“... this will take a dobosh to complete, and I’m sure you all could use a right scrub down. What do you say we all meet in the lounge in half a varga?” Coran busies himself with a tool, not turning to look at them. 

The paladins exchange a look. Each pings with feelings- curiosity, disbelief, slight betrayal radiating off of Lance. The Doc lays a hand on his arm. She’s right. They’ll all feel better clean. Yes, and fed, thank you Hunk. 

They peel off for their quarters. 

Keith gestures Shiro to go first. Shiro would much rather go in together. Keith raises an eyebrow and Shiro flushes, looking at the floor. They haven’t, yet. Nothing besides kissing and aggressive cuddling. He hadn’t meant to…

“You’re fine,” Keith assures him. “Really.” He grabs his towel and a change of clothes and steps into the washroom. 

Shiro slips off his outer suit for now. Keith is always quick to shower, in and out. A five in one shampoo, conditioner, body wash and drain cleaner kind of guy, Lance had called him. Shiro smirks and feels the slight echo of preening from down the hall. It ought to feel intrusive, but it isn’t somehow. It seems natural that they should know each other so well. Lance, with his quick jibes and insistence on verbal communication, is the only reason they have boundaries at all. Lance was doing the right thing. A steady, second hand man. 

Lance’s warm appreciation, tinged with just a hint of hero worship makes Shiro smile, even as he idly picks up his blood serum meter. No time like the present, he figures. Why wait for bedtime? He doesn’t even flinch when the needle sinks into his thumb, drawing a single drop of blood for analysis. The machine hums softly. The results are on the screen. 

Shiro stares at them, feeling calm. 

“Shiro? You’re up.” Keith is drying his hair so he doesn’t see the look on Shiro’s face, and Shiro immediately thinks of hot showers and clean clothes to keep anyone else from sensing his mood. 

The shower is lovely, and he is in a good enough humor from the worn sweats and oversized hoodie that he is able to push his other concerns to the side for now. In the kitchen, Hunk is making Reiphod freeze-dried birdlam which, the way Hunk prepares it, comes out a lot like oversized boneless buffalo wings. Shiro helps out, cutting vegetables that seem like a cross between a daikon and a cucumber, with a large single pit in the center. 

Coran joins them with a smaller, sadder version of his usual cheer. Even his mustache seems subdued. He stands, back straight, hands clasped behind, and to Shiro he looks nothing less than a man going to execution. 

“We aren’t going to be angry with you,” Hunk says gently, echoing his thoughts. A glance of solidarity between them. “If you kept something back… well, you probably had a good reason, right?” 

Lance’s expression is tight but then the Doc slips her hand into his. He looks down at her and softens. “Alright, Coran. It’s answer o’clock. Was the paladin bond always supposed to be this strong?” 

Coran nods sharply. “It was always meant to be an extension of self. What you have now is rapidly becoming the same level of connection that the previous paladin group attained before Honerva and Zarkon’s betrayal.” 

“So before, we weren’t doing it right.” Hunk frowns. 

“You weren’t doing anything wrong,” Coran says, then stops. 

“Coran, man, you’re killing me. I can’t live with all this secrets-from-Lance thing anymore.” Lance snaps. 

“Oh.” The Doc straightens. Epiphany. Coran looks at her and seems to crumple even further into himself. “What was the difference, between now and then? What would keep him from telling you, Lance? You’ve always been his favorite.” 

“Shiro’s my favorite,” Coran says petulantly. 

“Shiro is everyone’s favorite, that doesn’t count,” Keith rolls his eyes. Shiro, bewildered, echoes embarrassment. 

“It’s Allura, Lance.” The Doc lays a hand on his arm gently. “Allura was the reason we never formed a proper bond before.” 

Lance’s shock reverberates through them. 

“She was… so exceptional. So smart and strong and just. From the time she was a girl, she…” Coran shakes his head. 

“Sit down, Coran.” Hunk says kindly. “We’re not just your paladins, we’re your friends.” 

Coran sinks into a chair with a sigh. Shiro fetches him a water pouch and smiles reassuringly when their eyes meet. 

“Aliens,” Shiro says, gesturing between them. "You _and_ me." Coran’s smiles weakly in return but sits up a little straighter afterward. 

“Yes. Alright, let me explain the best I can. Allura was always exceptionally gifted. King Alfor had suspected she had a connection to Ancient Altean Magic, a throw back in her bloodline thought lost for generations. It was one reason why saving her in the cryo-chamber was so very important.” 

The Doc leans in, head on Lance’s shoulder. He strokes her hair gently, absently. Lovingly, maybe. 

“The problem didn’t really begin until Balmera. We looked over the rite and there was no way an untrained singular Altean should have been able to rehabilitate an entire planet that quickly. It should have killed her. When she lived, I thought only that she was more powerful than I could have dreamed, but…” 

Coran fiddles with his pouch. “It was that point that I realized the bonds were not progressing as quickly as they should have. Allura realized it too, but when I made the connection, I could not bear to tell her. She had begun to feed on the paladin bond. At first, it was only enough to slow the progress you all made together. I thought- a little, would be fine. But then we found out about Keith’s heritage. She rejected his Galra side so violently. The team… fractured in some ways. No one was inclined to stand up for him, even when our allies used his Galra status as an insult.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Keith says. Shiro sends him a wave of love and support through the bond and for once, Lance doesn’t comment. He hates that there was ever a time that Keith felt unwanted. Keith, the best man in this or any universe. Keith who deserves every kind of affection.

“It does,” Coran corrects him. “Because even though you could stand it, that was why there was so much resistance in making you the Black Paladin- a position you were always meant to take one day. Black recognized you as a candidate even when Shiro was piloting, by allowing you to fly her in dire circumstance. Everyone should have accepted that, and you should never have felt the pull to leave at all. Allura’s powers and prejudices created problems with your bond.”

“So Keith wasn’t meant to leave with the Blade. What does that mean?” Lance asks. But he knows, because they all do. 

“Allura wasn’t supposed to pilot Blue,” Shiro realizes. Hunk whistles low and long. 

“She used her powers to bend the bond- to insert herself as candidate. Please don’t think ill of her,” Coran pleads. “She had no idea. She could never have known what she was doing or what she was capable of. It was entirely my doing. I thought… all for the best.” 

“What happened to Shiro?” Keith asks. He’s frowning, and Shiro knows that he isn’t thinking about him- this Shiro in the same room. 

Coran gestures helplessly. “I don’t know for certain-”

“Pidge,” Keith says, voice full of command. If he was a quarter less agitated, he might feel her cool analysis himself, but beneath his calm exterior he is a roil of feelings. Regret. Anger. Sadness. Longing. 

Shiro shifts back from Keith, just a little. The Doc looks at him sharply before turning her attention to Keith. “My best guess is that she genuinely tried to help him, but you know what a struggle it was to combine the two. If Coran’s assessment is accurate, then I think… I think she…”

“Ate it?” Hunk finishes with dawning horror. 

“ _Absorbed it,_ ” she hisses. “I think the effort made her absorb Shiro’s bond with Black.”

“Not just Black,” Shiro murmurs, looking at the floor. “Allura absorbed the bond he had with all of you.” 

“That’s why he didn’t love me,” Keith says in disbelief. 

And it shouldn’t hurt. 

But it does. 

“Ow, what is _that-_ ” Hunk grabs at his chest. The Doc almost falls off her chair. 

Keith staggers a little in place before he looks up. “Shiro?” 

“Okay, that’s good, right? We’re all caught up now, go team!” Lance has Shiro by the arms from behind, pushing him through the doorway and out of the kitchen. “Save us some not-buffalo wings!” He calls over his shoulder. 

“Hey-” Keith looks rather desperate, as the door slides shut between them. 

“Keep walking, buddy.” Lance pushes until they’re almost at the other end of the ship, near the emergency airlock. Shiro is nearly boneless with relief and gratitude. 

“Nope, no no no, this is a no-emote zone.” Lance holds his arms up, crossing the forearms in an exaggerated X. “Look, I think the mind meld thing is cool too, but take it from a guy with a big ass family- you need your breathing room sometimes. Believe it or not, I’m not just chatty cause I like my own voice so much.” He rolls his eyes. “Not that _Pidge_ would ever believe it, but. Whatever. I figured out that if you’re talking, you can focus your thoughts better and it keeps the others out of the… heartspace, I guess.”

“That’s a good name,” Shiro croaks. 

“See, yeah, like that. Talk to me, Shiro.” Lance encourages him. 

“I’m not Shiro,” Shiro says, feeling a little crazed. 

“Of course you’re Shiro. You’re original flavor, Coke Classic in a glass bottle Shiro. And other Shiro is Shiro too, just like… Cool Ranch Shiro.” 

“What about the Shiro in the middle?” Shiro asks, amused despite himself. Talking is helping- Keith’s sour worry recedes. He can’t- just now he can’t. 

“Spicy Nacho Shiro, definitely. So I guess Shiro now is like… Chex Mix Shiro. Cause it’s both, plus retirement. I don’t know, the metaphor got away from me.” Lance shrugs.

“Keith is… always Keith. He’s the only Keith I’ll ever know.” Shiro explains. “And it shouldn’t matter because I’m dying, but I’m never going to really know if I’m _his_ Shiro. I’m not… Lance, I never did anything right. Kerberos got screwed up, and I wasn’t a Champion or the Black Paladin or an Admiral or anything but… sick.” Shiro gestures at himself.

Lance thinks that over for a minute. Then he glances out, at the endless reaches of space. They’re so far out there’s hardly even stars in this direction. 

“Y'know, I almost died in one of these,” he says, rapping his knuckles against the glass. “Castle went all psycho-roboto on us, and Keith ended up being the only thing between me and space-death.” 

“Shit,” Shiro says, horrified and impressed. 

Lance laughs. “Yeah. It was a lot. It’s always been a lot for us. It was like… this thing, this mission, this pretty girl- take the chance! There’s no saying tomorrow will ever come, that kind of thing.” 

“It’s a strong bond,” Shiro agrees. 

Lance continues looking casually out of the airlock window. “Pidge thinks I’m going to leave her for Allura, when we find her.” 

“Are you going to?” Shiro asks seriously. 

Lance, being Lance, doesn't say yes or no. Instead, he launches into a story. 

“The last break I went home from the Garrison, I got busted breaking curfew. I’d snuck out my window with my guitar to go to the beach bonfire for Alejandra Carmen Hernandez.” He says it with a little reverent sigh. 

“Hottest girl in Varadero, legs for days. And she liked me! Till that _hijo de puta_ Dalian Camilo showed up. Turns out a 1951 custom four door convertible sedan nicked from your _abuelito_ beats out Wonderwall, who knew? Also didn’t know it’s significantly easier sneaking out of a place with an acoustic than sneaking back in. My dad, he took me aside and he said ‘son, you got a good eye and a good heart, but if you want a good life, marry your best friend.’ And get this, the minute I got back to the Garrison, guess who was in my dms? Dalian put a scratch in the car and got shipped off to his aunt’s in the boonies so Garrison Lance was a decent fallback plan. All ‘I’m so sorry _bebe_ next weekend you can fly out let’s be together _mi rey._ ” Lance shakes his head. “Classic Carmen. Anyway, I never hit her back. Pidge and I had a high score streak going in Shoot N’ Destroy, and then I never got around to it.” 

“Carmen wasn’t Allura,” Shiro points out. 

Lance grins. “Nah, Carmen was a bitch. Allura was a princess. Pidge… she’s my best friend.” 

“Have you told her?” Shiro asks curiously. 

“I tried, a little. But you know, people are funny. They fight and they say and think terrible things. My oldest brother told me I was adopted and if I told anyone I knew, I’d get sent back to the home when I was five. I cried myself to sleep for two weeks before my mom caught on.” He scowls. “A dick move, but whatever. I know he loves me, and it didn’t screw us up forever because we’re different people and we have space to grow. This bond, it means one little slip up can really mess something up. So maybe I’m not pushing it just now.” 

“I know Keith cares about me. I know he didn’t mean to hurt me.” Shiro insists. 

“But he still shouldn’t have said that. It still hurt you,” Lance says gently. “And it’s okay to be hurt about it for a while.” 

“I…” Shiro swallows. “My levels. The serum levels. They’re plateauing.” Lance is quiet for a moment. “It’s okay,” Shiro says soothingly. “It’s okay, I knew it would soon. It’s not… they aren’t dropping yet. But it’s different, seeing it happen.” 

“Did you tell anyone else yet?” Lance asks. 

“No. There’s nothing the Doc can do. I was going to tell Keith tonight, but.”

“You don’t have to tell him anything,” Lance says firmly. “Even if you’re in love, even if you’re together.” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow, incredulous. Lance waves a hand. “This and that are different things. I got over it. But don’t tell Pidge I said that.” 

Shiro snorts a laugh. “She always knows best, doesn’t she?” 

“She… does.” Lance says slowly, like he’s thinking something over. “Are you ready to go back? I think I have another question for everyone.” 

“I am. And Lance… thank you.” Shiro says shyly. 

“Aw, _Shiro._ ” Lance coos. “Don’t give me those come-hither eyes, I’m a taken man!” 

They walk back to the meeting room in a comfortable silence. Behind the door, there’s an air of tension and muffled unhappiness. When they step through, Keith starts almost violently. Concern and contrition envelop Shiro, but he takes a deep breath, gently putting it aside. Later. That’s for later. 

Keith sinks back into his chair then, looking away. 

Coran has gone back to his room, drained and somber, but the others have waited for them. Hunk rewarms the not-buffalo wings- a good thing, he assures them, because it makes the edges crispier. 

“I have a question, Pidgeon.” Lance announces, spinning around on a stool a few times. 

“Lancelot,” the Doc replies with dignity. 

“Allura took the bond with her when she left to save the multiverse. That’s what we’re following, right? The stronger the bond gets, the closer we are.” 

“An excellent analysis,” Hunk agrees. “Do you think this tastes more like ranch or blue cheese?”

Shiro tests it. “...thousand island.”

“Huh. Weird.” 

“So when we all stopped talking and went our separate ways… that was the bond going bye-bye?” Lance asks. 

“I figured it was all the trauma,” Hunk says sagely, rooting around for the potholders. “I just didn’t feel like I had to see you guys. Like it was nice, don’t get me wrong! But I didn’t… need it anymore.” 

“Same for me,” Lance agrees. “Keith?” 

Keith exhales long and low. The Doc frowns at him. He looks up with a little half smile. “I’m not sulking, Pidge. I guess it was like that. I always felt like you guys didn’t want me, you just needed me sometimes. After Voltron was gone, the only people who needed me were people I hadn’t met yet.” 

“Shiro, that’s hot,” Hunk reminds him aloud. He’s paused, pan halfway to the counter, and come to think of it, the heat was uncomfortably seeping through the potholders. 

“Ow, shit. Sorry.” He puts the pan down with a clatter and shakes his hands out. “I’m fine,” he assures them. 

“Right, right, so riddle me this, Batman- why _did_ we stay in touch? Why were we even talking enough to go on a trip like this in the first place?” Lance pauses, waggling his eyebrows for exaggerated effect. 

“You clearly know, or think you do,” the Doc says dryly. “Spare us the dramatics.”

“I have never done that a single day in my life,” Lance says seriously. “And it was you, Pidge. Obviously.” 

Hunk perks up. “Wait a minute. It _was_ Pidge who started techie tag. With that, uh, Olkarian game boy thing? Rigged to run a Raspberry Pi?” 

“Pidge asked me to run it out to you,” Keith agrees, looking interested. The Doc’s nervousness thrums along their connection. 

“And she’s the one who got planet side Shiro into gardening, and into unloading his extra zucchini at my farm’s produce stand.” Lance points out. “And she came up with the idea to start exporting Terran produce through the Blades, which got me talking to Keith and Hunk again.”

“She traced the quintessence logs to find me. She saved me.” Shiro says quietly. 

The Doc, by this point, has her hands up, covering her face. Don’t hide. We love you. 

Lance gently pulls her hands free. “Pidge? Pidgey-pidge?” He stands to one side, holding her hand gently. 

“It just didn’t make sense,” she says quietly. “If we were supposed to be bonded, if we were supposed to be family, how could we just… not be that anymore?” 

Keith takes her other hand. “When I felt this, out here- I thought I was going crazy. You’re the reason I followed up on it- because I knew you’d have my back. You always did.” 

The Doc is looking at the ground stubbornly. Shiro kneels to get into her eyeline. Her eyes are filled with tears. 

“You say logic and brains, and you have them, but I think you’re forgetting that the green lion… the left hand, it’s the closest to the heart. You’re our heart, Doc.” 

“Group hug!” Hunk announces, coming in and scooping them all together from behind the Doc. It’s a warm tangle of limbs, love, and team bonding. Afterward, as one, they turn on the not-buffalo wings. Hunk is right, they won’t be nearly as good cold. 

Shiro sits next to Keith at the table. Keith, tentative, looks at him with want, tempered devotion. 

For him? For any Shiro? 

It isn’t better, but it’s something.


	9. Gone Mute

Keith waits for Shiro in their quarters, sitting on the edge of the bed but fully dressed. The space wolf isn’t here; Keith must have sent him to sleep in the common area, or maybe in the cargo bay. 

_Love. Worry. Apology._ It tugs at Shiro as soon as the door closes behind him and he closes his eyes briefly in the moment, under the onslaught of them. He takes a deep breath. 

“Words, Keith,” Shiro says gently. The feeling ebb as Keith struggles to speak. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith says. “I’m so… I’m so sorry.” 

“I know.” Shiro says gently. “Thank you for apologizing.” He sits on the bed, close but not closely.

“It’s not enough, is it?” Keith asks miserably. 

Shiro tilts his head thoughtfully to the side. “I forgive you,” he says at last. 

“But you don’t trust me.” Keith looks away, like the sight of Shiro’s resigned, calm expression is hurting him. 

“I’m going to die, Keith.” Shiro explains. Keith whips around to stare at him beseechingly. “Not tomorrow, probably, or until we finish the mission, but… soon. Before we get home, I think. Time is strange here, and I think I’m past the halfway point now.” 

Keith’s distress is palpable now, echoes shivering out to the others who are trying their best not to eavesdrop, to interrupt with their own sympathetic sadness. 

“I love you,” Shiro tells him, looking deeply into Keith’s purple nebula eyes. 

“I love you,” Keith says, and it’s almost a sob. “I swear. You _know_ I do.” 

“Of course you do.” Shiro agrees. “I never doubted it for a moment. You’re all feelings and instinct, Keith. You loved me then, and you love me now, and you have loved every version of me in between. And I don’t think you ever really had to think about it- what I was or what it meant, when there were more of me. And, well... we both know now.” 

Keith’s hands twist into the bedding unhappily. “Do you want me to go?” He asks. “I can find somewhere else to bunk.” 

“No,” Shiro corrects him. “I love you and I don’t want you to go. I want every minute I can have with you. I’m selfish that way.” 

“I want that too, Shiro-!” he bursts and Shiro scoots in a little, taking Keith’s hands so that he falls quiet. 

“Everything is going to happen very quickly from here on, Keith. I don’t want you to go away from me. I just need you to understand.” Shiro takes a deep breath. “We’re going to find your friend. We’ll do everything we can to bring her back. Then… I’m going to die out here. And you are going to go home to Shiro.” 

Keith looks stricken. 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s romantic or chivalrous or in a family way- you’ll love him as you loved me and you’ll always have that. I’m glad in a lot of ways. I don’t like to think of you hurting. But… you’re my only Keith. So in some ways, it’s a little bittersweet.” Shiro tightens his hold briefly, and then he lets go. “We should get some rest.” 

In bed, Keith plasters himself to Shiro’s back, breathing in unsteadily against the side of his neck. One more sad Shiro memory for Keith to treasure. He’ll go home and see his Shiro and even if they can’t be together, for Keith it will be enough. He’s always worn tragic well. 

One more lost Shiro, in a line of lost Shiros. 

Keith won’t ever love him best. 

Pointless to wish differently. 

~~

There is no time for awkwardness; by the time their sleep cycle ends, the bond has grown painfully strong. Keith forces everyone into group meditation while he assists Coran on the bridge, pinpointing their direction based on his attunement to quintessence and the pulsing glow of Allura’s crystal. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of varga at this point; there isn’t a passing notion or momentary musing that escapes notice. Shiro is acutely aware that Hunk’s left nostril itches something fierce, and that the Doc is strongly considering the merits of anxiety vomiting. Lance is talking, but even his stream of cheerful nonsense can’t overpower the hopeful excitement that spikes into uncertainty whenever he looks at the Doc. 

Shiro takes a deep, centering breath. He thinks about the cool blue-black of the night sky at home- of familiar stars and constellations. He pictures them clearly, every bright shimmer and shade, picked out with perfect clarity. 

Do they remember? 

He’ll help them remember. 

Shiro reaches out. 

Casseiopia. Hunk rubs at his nose with his sleeve, then folds his hands in his lap placidly. Ursa Major. Lance’s words trail off and his gaze turns thoughtful. Libra. The Doc swallows hard, then matches Shiro’s breathing. Orion. Keith, on the bridge, lets the tension out of his shoulders. 

Shiro lets them feel the depth of his certainty. They have come across the universe for something so important, and they have come together. His calmness washes over them, and if it’s tinged with the darker shades of melancholy, he’s honest enough to let them feel that too. This is sad and joyous, full of love and loss. This matters, in the moment, and each and every one of them, brilliant and important, needed and wanted. 

And then?

“We’re here,” Keith whispers, and they rise as one. 

~~

They… appear. 

One moment they are on the ship, and the next they stand together in an empty room of white stone, seamless and sparkling and clean. Coran is not there, and neither is Kosmo. 

“The ship?” Hunk asks and then gasps. 

They look around at each other. Their minds are quiet and separate again. It feels deeply like a loss, all at once like that. Shiro is glad that the last moment they had together was the sure serene blue of the Earth’s night sky. 

“What now?” Lance asks, stepping a little to the side to put a hand on the Doc’s shoulder. When he moves, the ground beneath his feet lights gently. “What in the quiznacking quiznack-” 

“I still don’t think you’re using that right,” Keith remarks lightly. The stone beneath his feet begins to glow as well. Then the Doc, then Hunk, and finally Shiro. When they look up from their feet, five doors have appeared in the previously flat blank wall. They look identical, white and silver, with door handles carved into the shape of lions. The lighted stone floor leads across the room, pointing each of them to a door. 

“Keith?” Shiro asks, almost instinctively. 

“Yeah.” Keith licks his lips nervously but his eyes are warm and reassuring. “It’s- it’s really strong here. I think this is where we’re meant to be.” 

“Should we go through the doors?” Shiro asks, but even as he says it, he notices himself inching closer despite his hesitation. 

“Yes,” the Doc says without hesitation. Her eyes are on her door and she gazes at it with open longing. “Can’t you feel that?” 

Magnetic, a pull like the center of his being. Like on the other side of the door would be something like comfort, something accepting and warm. 

“What is that?” Shiro asks, voice barely above a whisper as his hand falls on the door. 

“Don’t be afraid,” Lance reassures him. “It’s them.” 

_The Lions._

“Shiro.” Keith pauses, meets his eyes from across the room. Shiro doesn’t need to mind connect to know what Keith’s thinking- that Keith wants to hurtle through the door headfirst and ask questions later. But he _is_ waiting, choosing to wait for Shiro. He won’t go through till Shiro does. Whatever’s on the other side of the door, he’ll tear through that too… whatever it takes to get back to Shiro again. 

Devotion. 

“I love you,” Shiro says helplessly. Then he steps through the door. 

~~

Lance stares. 

“Don’t just stand there!” Pidge screeches. 

“Lance!” Allura gasps, reaching out. 

Zarkon- the creature that _had_ been Zarkon, rises from the ground in a tangle of purple clawed tentacles, smoke roiling and curling around his two hostages, hoisting them into the air where they squirm, helpless and miserable. 

Dimly, Lance realizes that he’s in paladin armor- a strange and colorless version. At his side is a strange colorless bayard that activates into his signature firearm in an instant. 

“ _Choose,_ ” the-Zarkon-that-was booms. 

Lance is already in motion, bringing his sidearm up and firing two quick blasts that land as perfect headshots, but the impact glances off his helmet harmlessly. 

“ _Choose,_ ” Zarkon repeats. “Who lives and who dies?” 

“Quiznacking quiznack,” Lance whispers. 

~~

Pidge walks down a long line of servers along a narrow hallway. She laces her hands together as she walks- a nervous tic. The familiar gloved fingertips cause her to glance down in surprise. 

“What-?” She spins around quickly, realizing that she’s in full paladin armor- a strange colorless version. 

Nothing for it but to keep going. 

She continues until the hall opens up into a control room- one lined with monitors and keyboards and data ports. It’s like a dream… a set up strong enough to power a space station, but all that computing power dedicated solely for research. Solely for her. 

Dreamily, she reaches out, taps her twenty-eight digit code into the main datapad. It accepts her with a pleasant welcoming beep. 

A familiar data sectional with five separate vector sets. 

Purple. 

Interchangeable variables.

The monitors beep, long and low. Words appear across the screen. 

_Choose._

Pidge’s fingers tremble where they hover over the keys. 

~~

Purple. 

That’s what Shiro sees. 

Glass tubes, twelve feet tall and glowing with an eerie violet brilliance. He glances at one as he walks and stops dead in his tracks. 

It’s him. 

It’s _him._

Shiro’s own face is suspended in the gleaming fluid. 

As he studies that Shiro, he realizes it’s not… not _quite_ him after all. There’s a scar across the curve of his nose and a streak of white in the dark hair. Scars across his chest and curving around his torso to his back. One arm is gone. 

This is gladiator Shiro- Champion Shiro. 

“Oh.” Shiro steps back hastily- too hastily. He nearly trips over himself, stumbling and catching himself on another glass case, gloved hands pressed against the unyielding surface. He wears paladin armor, colorless and surprisingly well-suited to his frame exactly.

“What…?” Shiro breathes almost involuntarily. Gradually, his reflection gives way as he focuses on what is inside. The creature is curled in on itself, large and purple skinned, hardly fitting in the space. 

It has a white streak and a missing arm. 

Shiro lifts his head and starts to look around. The panic seizes him suddenly, in a vise-grip on his chest that strangles the breath from his lungs. Panic he hadn’t felt for years- not since he was a teenager coming to terms with the fact that his life was half over already. 

“Choose.” 

Shiro turns. 

Slav stands in the center of the room. 

“You?” Shiro asks, surprised. 

“One of me,” Slav agrees. “One of many possible me’s.” 

“Choose,” Shiro echoes. 

“There must be a Shiro, and you? You are dying.” Slav says, not unkindly. “So you must choose.” 

“My replacement,” Shiro realizes. 

“From all possible worlds,” Slav gestures broadly. “Choose the best Shiro.” 

~~

Keith doesn’t know what he expects, but it isn’t what he sees. 

What he sees is the desert shack. 

Exactly the same- the dust, the dirt, the cracked window patched with packing tape and half a cardboard box. The sad dumpster furniture. 

The only thing that’s different is Shiro sitting on the couch, the sunlight shining on his brilliant white hair. He smiles up at Keith a little shyly, waving the fingers of his prosthetic hello. 

“Shiro? It’s…” Keith tentatively touches the metal arm. “This is new. It’s actually you. How?” 

“I don’t know,” Shiro admits. “But I’ve been feeling different lately. More connected? I think I might be sleeping, but… somehow I knew I was going to see you.” 

“ _Why?_ ” Keith asks, aghast. 

Shiro closes his eyes a moment, pained. “We need to talk.” 

“I need to go,” Keith says firmly. He turns to the door, but the door is gone. Only smooth cracked wooden walls remain. “Come the fuck on,” Keith mutters darkly. 

“Keith…”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” Keith grunts, examining the window. Boarded over from the outside, of course.

“Just sit down…” 

“He needs me!” Keith snaps.

“I need this too,” Shiro says with finality. 

And there’s really no choice, is there? There’s no fucking _door._

Keith laughs, low and unhappy as he sinks into the chair across from Shiro. They're both in paladin armor, he notes, but without the markings of Red or Black. “Well, you always get what you need in the end, I guess.” 

Shiro at least has the grace to flinch. 

~~

Hunk steps through the door and into an empty room of white stone, seamless and sparkling and clean. 

“Huh.” Hunk glances over his shoulder and the door he came in through slams shut. He scrabbles for it, but realizes belatedly that there’s no handle on this side. As his hand slaps uselessly against the door, he realizes that he's wearing his Yellow Paladin armor. Despite gaining a couple healthy pounds on his culinary travels through the years, it still fits perfectly. One small favor. The door on the other hand...

“Just my luck,” Hunk groans. 

“It will open again,” a cool feminine voice tells him from behind. “When the others complete their tests.” 

Hunk turns slowly. 

Honerva smiles at him. 

“Welcome, Yellow Paladin.”


	10. My Universe

~~

“Look, you’re the one who wants to talk so hurry up and talk,” Keith says impatiently, shifting in his chair. “I have to _go._ ” 

“I don’t think that’s how time works here,” Shiro says gently. “I think we have as much time as we need.” 

“As much time as _you_ need,” Keith corrects him. 

“Keith, why are you so angry?” Shiro asks, sad-eyed and confused. “I know we haven’t been close, but it wasn’t like this when you left. What happened?” 

“He’s in love with me,” Keith says, almost defiantly. “He loves me, and I love him and I keep… hurting him because of all my bullshit with you.” 

“I’m sorry.” Shiro does sound sorry, his mouth dipping sadly on one side. The way Keith’s Shiro does, when he’s really sorry too. “But that’s not my fault.” 

“It _is_ your fault,” Keith mutters. “And it’s my fault. And it doesn’t matter because he’s gonna die before I can sort it all out anyway.” 

“Keith…” 

“Just-” Keith waves a hand. “Just say the thing you want to say. All the things you want to say. Just get ‘em off your chest, let me really have it. Then we can just… move on.” 

“Keith, what do you think I’m going to say to you?” Shiro asks, bewildered. Keith shrugs. “No, seriously. What horrible things do you think I’m going to say?” 

“I’m a fuck up.” Shiro starts in his chair but Keith holds up a hand. “If you want me to say it, shut up and let me say it.” Shiro nods, though he doesn’t look happy about it. Well, that makes two of them for once. 

“All I do is make mistakes. And I get there eventually, I guess, but that doesn’t change the fact that I always take the long way around. And there’s damage from that, people really get hurt because of how stupid I can be. As a leader, sure, but my personal life is a fucking wreck too. I loved Shiro since I was sixteen. And I loved you, when I got you back on Earth and maybe it wasn’t the same and I didn’t know, or I did and pretended it wasn’t any different, but the end result is whatever, right? And there was a minute where I thought that you might- that you might have- but that was stupid and I feel _crazy,_ you know? Who gets hung up over their first crush, it’s so childish.” Keith covers his eyes with both hands. “So I guess I’m a liar, but I don’t know which part is the lie. I just know that this _hurts._ I can’t stop it hurting, whatever Shiro it is.” 

“You’re not crazy,” Shiro says with quiet certainty. Keith huffs a little laugh without looking up. “You’re not,” he repeats firmly. “I told Curtis on our second date that there were things I could never tell him. That if he wanted to be with me, he would have to let some things go. That I might die without ever telling him and he had to accept that.” 

Keith stirs a little. “That’s kinda harsh,” he says. 

Shiro nods. “You’re not crazy, Keith. I’m not your Shiro- not your first Shiro, even if I didn’t know it at the time. But I never felt worthy of your devotion. I knew somehow that it wasn’t… really for me. And then…” Shiro hesitates. “Then there was a moment where maybe it could have been.” 

Keith looks up. 

“After the clone body. After the fight. Keith, you’re brilliant and you’re beautiful and you’re so passionate. Who wouldn’t be tempted?” Shiro reaches out and Keith lets him. They hold hands across the space. 

“I thought I imagined it.” Keith whispers. “You went to ride in Green, and then it was like we were strangers.” 

“You didn’t imagine it.” Shiro tells him. “But that was when all the memories came together and that was when I realized that I wasn’t Shiro. I wasn’t ever your Shiro, and that meant…” Shiro swallows hard. “I had to choose, Keith. I had to choose between you and myself.” 

“I don’t understand,” Keith says slowly. 

“You’re not Curtis.” Shiro says bluntly. “And you never would have let me hide it. If we were together, if we were in love- you’d have found out.”

“You don’t think I would have stopped wanting you?” Keith asks, almost angrily. 

“No.” Shiro squeezes his hand. “I’m not… I’m not a good person, Keith.” Keith starts to protest but it’s Shiro’s turn to waive him to silence. “I can do good things, I have done good things, but at my core, I’m selfish. I want to live and I want the kind of life that I decide- one without conflict, one with calmness and stability. I want this life. I want to be Shiro.” 

“You _are_ Shiro,” Keith says, confused. 

“I am now. And as long as no one knew, I always could be.” Shiro nods. “I couldn’t tell you because… you would have gone looking for him. And I wanted him to stay gone forever.” 

Keith stares, aghast. Shiro laughs a little, unhappily, and he lets Keith’s hand loose. 

“Yeah,” he says. “That.” Shiro leans back, staring up at the ceiling. “When you told me about Take, I knew. Your whole face lit up, and-” He gestures vaguely. 

“I don’t understand.” Keith says slowly. “What are you trying to say?” 

“Haggar exchanged me for the real Shiro as soon as he made Champion, that very first big fight. _Why?_ ” Shiro stands impatiently, begins pacing a little back and forth. 

“I don’t know. Nothing Haggar does makes sense to me,” Keith admits. “I’m not smart enough.”

“No, you’re not cruel enough.” Shiro corrects. “But I am. Shiro was _special._ It wasn’t just that he was powerful or smart. He hurt Matt to save his life- you think Haggar didn’t see that? He never quit trying to be better, to make the best choices in every situation.” Shiro stops, looks down at Keith. “I didn’t do that. All I did was get by, survive through hurting others. I don’t know what would have happened if Shiro was the one who went through everything- but he wouldn’t have done the things I did. Even if it killed him.” 

And Shiro stands there, white hair and fragile eyes, shoulders tense and looking lost- so lost. More lost than Keith can remember seeing him for years and years now. And there’s that familiar curl of warmth in his chest, the same as it has been forever, almost. Love, of course.

But it isn’t what he feels for his Shiro. Not his Shiro, who reaches out even when he’s afraid, who loves the stars and Keith and living. His Shiro, who will wait for him on the other side as long as he can- until his body gives out, until his soul fades away. It’s a desperate, greedy feeling- hot and helpless and wanting. 

It _is_ different. It’s always been different. 

Keith loves Shiro. He loves all the forms that Shiro can take. He just loves his Shiro a little better. 

“The choices you made, made you the Black Paladin.” Keith says, rising to his feet. “The things you went through made you our leader. I’m proud to have followed you- to be chosen by you to lead the others. I’m not sorry that I loved you, either.” He clenches his fists at his sides. “You’re allowed to be selfish and to want things for yourself. You didn’t know Shiro was out there waiting to be rescued, and you don’t owe me _anything._ Nothing you do is going to take away from the fact that I care about you. And I always will. Just like… just like you care for me.” 

Shiro’s eyes are shiny in the low light of the desert sunset. Keith steps into his arms and Shiro folds around him. He always did give the best hugs. 

“Be happy, Shiro.” Keith says into his shoulder. 

“Go.” Shiro presses a kiss to the top of Keith’s head. “Be great.” 

When they part, their armor is shaded black. Shiro’s eyes close in bliss. “I can feel her,” he murmurs. “Oh, girl.” 

“Me too.” Keith grins crookedly. “See you on the other side, old timer.” And the door is there when he reaches for it.

~~

“ _Choose,_ ” Zarkon booms, and Lance shrugs. 

“Fine.” He barely even glances over as he fires three quick shots- enough to singe the three tentacles holding Pidge in place. 

“Lance!” Allura gasps, betrayed. “You love her more than you love me? You would abandon me forever?” 

“Princess,” Lance says, hands open. “Or thing-that-wants-me-to-think-it’s-the-Princess? I’m the plan guy. And while I do love Pidge- like really, really love her.... that’s not why I picked her instead.” 

“Why, then?” Not-Allura cries. 

“Because even here, Pidge is the smartest person I know, and I trust her with my life. And with yours too.” Lance steps backwards as Pidge, freed from her bonds, types out a couple of commands on her wristlet. An army of Rovers rise above the cliff’s edge, setting on Not-Zarkon with terrifying precision. Allura, cut cleanly free, tumbles away where Lance sweeps her up into his arms. Pidge is busy laughing maniacally as the lasers fly. 

“I’m gonna marry that girl,” Lance sighs. When he helps Not-Allura to her feet, he notices his armor is red. “Huh. Guess that’s that.” 

“Lance!” Pidge shouts, then points over the cliff’s edge. A door has opened up midway down. Lance shrugs, shoots Not-Allura a quick sloppy salute, and throws himself over the edge. 

~~

Pidge looks at the data set. 

It wants her to key in a name. 

It wants her to decide. 

The purple variable. 

_Choose_ repeats on every monitor. The beeping grows louder and louder. 

Pidge leans down, picking up the chair in front of the console. She hefts it up and throws it bodily into the largest monitor. The screen shatters, sparks and glass flying. 

“No thank you,” she says to the now quiet room. “I compiled the data, and I got us here. Whatever happens now, it’s not my choice to make.” 

Behind the giant wall-sized monitor, she sees the outline of a door. As she lifts her feet to step through, she notices her paladin boots are lined in green. 

~~

“What is keeping you, eh?” Slav prods as Shiro looks from tank to tank. Galra Shiros, Pilot Shiros, Shiros with medi-bracelets, Shiros with robot legs, with long hair, with skinny builds, with yellow eyes. 

“I know,” Shiro says. “I know I have to choose, but-” 

“But what?” Slav asks. 

“None of them feel right. They’re Shiros, okay. I’m a Shiro. There’s a Shiro on Earth. There’s probably a half a dozen Shiros floating out in space somewhere. I get it.” Shiro flicks the glass where a small Shiro, no older than twelve, is suspended in purple light. 

“You must choose the best Shiro,” Slav insists. “The Shiro who will carry on this mission.” 

“The best Shiro,” Shiro says softly. 

Who is it? 

He’s dying, so. 

So? 

So what. 

Shiro straightens up. 

“You choose, yes?” Slav asks, bouncing a little in place with excitement. 

“Yes,” Shiro smiles. “I choose me. I’m still the best Shiro. I’m the Shiro who ought to be here.” 

A panel opens up against the wall. A door, white with a lion carved handle. As he steps through the door, he sees his colorless armor change in the light. 

“Good luck, Blue Paladin,” Salv whispers, as the door snicks shut behind him. 

~~

All at once, five Paladins of Voltron stand in the white stone room. One Black, one Red, one Green, one Blue, one Yellow. 

“Welcome,” says a sixth. A pretty woman, with lavender-ash hair and smooth copper skin. A little older, perhaps, than anyone might have seen before, in memories or dreams. Lined about the eyes- and streak of white along her temple. 

Honerva. 

“What are you-” Keith tenses but Shiro holds a hand up. She’s wearing paladin armor- the strange colorless armor they’d all worn before. 

“This is the place beyond time. This is where the Lions rest.” 

And each of them suddenly stand tall, a gentle weight across their shoulders. A cat for each, in black and red and green and blue and yellow. As each paladin reaches up with wonder, meets the eyes of its chosen, they feel… connected. Warm. Loved. Wanted. Belonging. Acceptance. Every good thing, every wonderful feeling, in each of them but together also. The paladin bond. 

Pidge is the first to put her cat down, stroking along its back with one final loving hand. 

“We’ve come for Allura,” she says. 

Reluctantly, the others follow suit. Shiro gives his cat a kiss between her fluffy blue ears before letting her free. Blue, he notices, pauses to wind briefly around Lance’s ankle before settling, just as Red paws at Keith’s foot before joining the others. They sit before a door- a magnificent double door in every color of the rainbow. They sit and look up at the door. 

“Allura is behind this door,” Honerva says. “We came together and created this place together. But she has always been stronger, and once she discovered what her powers had done to the Lion Bond, she sealed herself away. It was the only way to return what she had stolen.” 

“So we open the door,” Lance says, but when Pidge puts out an arm, he stops obediently. 

“It will break her hold on the bond.” Honerva agrees. “But it has a cost.” 

“Are you paying the cost?” Keith asks. “For what you’ve done?” 

“I hope so,” Honerva says, expression sorrowful. “I am but an echo. I will never leave this place. I stay only to care for the Lions, and to administer the tests. Those who are true may become Paladins of Voltron. I never shall.” 

“Eternity alone.” Pidge says softly. 

“Yes. But there countless universes where that is not so. Where some other Honerva chose better. Where she is loved and finds love in turn.” She smiles sadly. “That will have to be enough.” 

“Yeah,” Shiro echoes. 

“The cost,” Lance reminds them. “What’s the price, here?” 

“Pidge,” Hunk says quietly. He is still holding Yellow in his arms, pressing his face into her face. She reaches up to pat his cheek with a soft paw before squirming free to join the others. 

“Yeah,” Pidge agrees. She closes her eyes. “A life for a life.” 

“The purple vector… interchangeable variables.” Shiro says with understanding. Pidge scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand. 

“It’s quintessence exchange,” she says helplessly. “I…” 

“It’s okay,” Shiro says softly. He takes her hand. “Honestly, it’s okay.” 

“No.” Keith says. 

“Keith…” Shiro reaches for him. Keith bats his hand away but Shiro catches it and holds tight. 

“Don’t,” Keith says sharply. “ _Don’t._ You’re leaving me. Don’t touch me if you’re leaving me!” 

Pidge crumbles and Lance pulls her in close, so she doesn’t have to watch. 

“Keith, I’m sorry… I know it’s hard, but Shiro-”

“I love _you_ ” Keith throws himself at Shiro heavily. “I want _you._ He’s not the same. He never was. I finally figured that out and it's too goddamn late-” His voice breaks. 

Shiro blinks back tears. 

“Would Allura even want this?” Lance asks. “She’d never choose to trade one of us for herself.” 

“I’m already dying,” Shiro says. “What does it matter?” 

Keith tenses, angry and helpless. 

“I’m not asking you to sacrifice me,” Shiro says. “I’m asking you to let me save her. Let me do something really meaningful with what I have left. Let my journey have a purpose.” 

One arm around Keith, he reaches out until Pidge breaks from Lance, throwing her arms around Shiro’s waist. Lance follows closely behind, hand on Shiro’s back, rubbing in soothing circles. 

Hunk takes a deep breath, looking over at Honerva who inclines her head toward him gracefully. He takes Lance by the hand. 

“Yeah… no. Hard pass, guys.” Then he places the flat of his hand against the door. 

Connected, it runs through them- through Hunk’s hand, Lance’s arms, Shiro’s back, radiating through Keith and through Pidge. A shock, like electricity, but draining too- the ebb of quintessence. 

“Oh,” Pidge gasps. “How stupid of me.” 

“It needed one life’s worth of quintessence,” Hunk explains. “Twenty percent from each of us.” 

“That’s nothing,” Keith says in disbelief. “We’ll gain that back in no time.” 

“Exactly,” Hunk grins. “You guys always take the hard way around, huh?” 

And the door swings open. 

~~

Allura, among a sea of juniberry flowers. She rises slowly, her starshine shimmer skirts flickering in an invisible breeze, and she holds out her arms, her face joyous and welcoming. 

_My Paladins._

Lance is first. He hugs her close and runs a hand along her gorgeous platinum hair. She dips her head a little, nuzzling into the side of neck for a brief indulgent moment. Then they part. No need for words here- only love. Tempered, melancholic, nostalgic love. When Lance steps away, the blue Altean marks are absent from his cheeks. Pidge is next and Allura scoops her up and spins her around before she leans down close. 

_I’m glad it’s you._

Pidge’s shoulders relax and she looks up at Allura- looks up at her with full honesty. With affection and admiration and longing all at once. Allura smoothes the line between her brows with a thumb when they begin to scrunch with guilt. 

_None of that. Only love here._

Pidge nods and steps aside. Hunk is next, and it’s Allura’s turn to be scooped up and swung around, her silent laughter filling the space until they’re all smiling with it, till it nearly hurts. 

_My trustworthy Paladin. I knew Honerva would help you find a way._

She touches his cheek briefly and he leans into it, blissful and eyes closed. He lets her down and steps to the side, where Lance and Pidge take his hands. The Garrison Trio once again. 

Then Keith, hesitant but with large liquid eyes. 

_Oh Keith._

Allura comes to him. She catches his hands in hers and draws him close. 

_I have done you a great disservice._

Keith shakes his head. And it’s true. Keith would never feel that way. 

_You are a great leader and a great friend._

There is no hiding here. Allura’s warmth surrounds them, draws out their best memories of Keith. Fierce and loyal, shy and uncertain. 

_Beautiful,_ she tells him. In every form.

Shiro agrees wholeheartedly, and then she is looking at him. He takes an uncertain step back. He’s not her Shiro. 

_I am so glad to meet you._ She envelopes him in a hug that feels like a sunbeam, warm and lighting. _Blue suits you. Your spirit is so lovely and so free._

Shiro ducks his head, embarrassed. 

_May I love you?_ Allura asks, as if there’s a doubt. She feels like a forgotten sister, a childhood friend. Someone familiar and lost. He loves her already. 

And they know, they way that they all know things now, that this is truly goodbye. She won’t be coming with them. 

It isn’t because she doesn’t love them. It isn’t because she doesn’t think that she belongs. She’s lived so long tangled in the Lion’s bond that she isn’t quite mortal anymore. 

She always wanted to make a difference. To lead, to make the universe a better place. This is her purpose, bittersweet though it may be. And she will miss them terribly. 

They have come all this way for her. She cannot let them leave empty handed. The quintessence they paid, to open the door. She can use it. And if she has any regrets, there is only one… 

If she may? 

_Yes,_ they chorus all at once. 

_Goodbye my loves,_ Allura says. 

And they are on the bridge of the ship again. 

The paladins stand clustered together. Pidge’s head is on Keith’s arm; Hunk leans heavily into Lance’s side; Pidge’s arms are looped around Shiro’s waist and Keith’s hand is on Shiro’s thigh. 

A noise breaks them from their reverie. They blink, faces turning toward the unfamiliar sound. 

Coran stands at the controls, staring down at the baby in his hands. Kosmo, at his feet, gives a curious sort of _wuff_ and sniffs at the child, ears perked in confusion. He looks at the paladins, then back at the baby. 

“Great Uncle Coran has a nice ring to it, huh?” Lance asks gently and Coran’s eyes well with tears. He cuddles the baby close and her whimpering complaints about being magicked into existence trail off into not-unhappy murmurs. 

“Look,” Coran says, unfolding the starlight blanket around her. She’s tiny and beautiful and perfect. Her hair and skin is deep brown, somewhere between Hunk and Lance’s color, with a single streak of white along her temple. She has Pidge’s snub nose and Allura’s curving ears and her eyes, when she opens them, are a deep purple-blue, framed by the softly glowing aqua of Altean marks.

“She’s got your eyes,” Shiro says, not caring how love-struck he sounds. His hand finds Keith’s. He means it to be romantic, but then his knees buckle and Keith is holding him up for real. 

“Shiro?” Keith asks sharply. 

“Twenty percent,” Pidge says in horror. “The nanobots-” 

Another wave of weakness strikes and Shiro collapses into the nearest chair. He knows this weakness, though it’s never been so strong. It’ll be quick from here, he knows. Perhaps only hours. 

The baby begins to cry. 

“Hush now little… little…”

“Melenor,” they say at once, then look around at each other, bemused. The paladin bond is fading, but the sense of closeness, of love- it stays. 

Coran tears up again, so that both he and the baby are wailing. 

“Oh… Okay, Coran, easy does it.” Hunk gingerly takes the baby. “Why don’t you see about getting together some uh… Altean baby stuff for the journey home. Don’t Altean babies need… things?” 

“Quiznack! You’re right. I’ve got to prepare. We’ll need wapsadoodles, parsnickums… what will we do about nurfastarini, I wonder…” Coran hurries off into the ship. 

Melenor continues crying. 

“Are you holding her right?” Pidge asks worriedly. 

“You try!” Hunk thrusts the baby at her. 

“What, cause I’m a girl?” Pidge asks crankily, but she takes Melenor with surprising gentleness. Melenor will have none of it. 

“Stand back, guys, Lance the baby expert is here.” Lance crows, scooping the baby into his confident arms. “I’ve got so many little cousins and nieces and nephews it isn’t even cute.” 

Melenor screams. 

“Give her to Shiro,” Keith says suddenly. 

Lance glances doubtfully at where Shiro is sitting in the chair, weak as a kitten. “Are you sure?” 

And, fair. Shiro’s limbs feel like overcooked spaghetti, but… 

Her mouth has that twist to one side, the face that Shiro makes when he’s being particularly stubborn. 

“She’s mine too,” he says. Keith helps him arrange the baby on his lap, and as soon as they are settled, she stops crying. 

“Unfair,” Lance gripes. “Shiro’s her favorite.” 

“Shiro is everyone’s favorite,” Pidge reminds him, smiling. 

“I’m so thankful,” Shiro says quietly, watching Melenor slip into a light contented doze in his arms. He feels better just holding her, just having her close like this. 

“Thank you for finding me, Doc. Thank all of you for being my friend, for letting me be part of this.” Keith kneels beside him for a better look, at him or at the baby or perhaps at the two of them, to fix the sight into his memory. 

“Thank you for loving me,” Shiro says softly. 

“Always.” Keith promises. 

Hunk and Keith steer Shiro back to the rooms and Lance and Pidge help him remove his flight suit and put on soft sleepwear while he cradles Melenor close. He’s being selfish, he knows, but there isn’t much time left. They’ll let him. 

He sits up against the headboard still holding her, Keith at his side when the others leave, giving them space. 

“You’ll tell her about me?” Shiro asks. 

“Every day.” Keith agrees. 

“I’m glad she’ll have the other Shiro.” Shiro says and finds that he means it. It matters less that he’s lost his place when he thinks that it means Melenor won’t miss that piece of her that belongs to Shiro, when he goes. 

“She’ll love him, and he’ll love her. But it won’t take your place. You’re _ours._ ” Keith says fiercely. 

“Do you love me?” Shiro asks, knowing the answer, just wanting to hear it once more. 

“I love you.” 

“As much as the other Shiros?” Shiro asks, running a finger along Melenor’s tiny hands, her perfect miniature fingernails. 

“More.” Keith says, low and earnest. “More than anything or anyone.” 

Shiro slumps against Keith’s side and Keith wraps an arm around Shiro’s back, keeping him upright and the baby safe. 

If he had to choose a last day to live, it would be this: flying through the stars surrounded by the ones he loves. 

It’s enough. 

~~

“Give it to me straight, Doc.” Shiro says lightly the next morning. 

Pidge frowns, looking checking his blood sample through the pocket electron microscope. “Seventy five percent of your nanobots are non-functional. They weren’t meant to go down all at once like this, so there’s some clotting as a side effect. If we were at The Station-” 

Shiro lays a hand against hers. “It’s alright,” he says gently. “I’m experiencing serum immunity regardless, so.” 

Pidge shakes her head. “It could be any time now.” She says through gritted teeth. Shiro nods. He knows. He can feel it. 

“Do you want anything? To do anything?” Keith asks at his side. Shiro shakes his head. 

“You can say, ‘after a life of adventure, he ended up dying in bed.’ Shiro quips. “Clean up will be easier too, that way. Just roll me up in the blanket and chuck me into cold storage.” 

Keith grimaces at his gallows humor, but before he can respond the door whooshes open and Coran appears, holding a distraught Melenor. 

“I’ve fed her and changed her and rocked her and sang all twenty seven versus of the Itsy Bitsy Yalmor but she just won’t stop crying!” Coran is nearly crying again himself. 

“There there,” Pidge comforts him laconically as Keith takes the baby and settles her into Shiro’s lap again where she quiets instantly. “Let’s go see Hunk about warming up some nice nunvill eggnog.” 

“What’s in eggnog?” Coran asks curiously. 

“Uh…” Pidge hedges as the door slides shut. 

“She really loves you,” Keith says affectionately. 

“I’m glad we’ll get to spend some time together,” Shiro answers diplomatically. He can’t be blamed for hogging the baby when he’s got so little time left. Perhaps she can sense it in some way- perhaps that is why she is so insistent on his company. 

Shiro feels calm, mostly. A little sad- he hates hurting them, and he hates hurting Keith. The selfish part of him that wanted Keith to love him best has settled- you can’t see that deeply into someone’s best heart like they had in Allura’s chamber and not recognize that. Keith does love most, and that means he will hurt all the more for it when Shiro dies. Be careful what you wish for. 

But he’s thought about dying for all of his life. So he’s ready. 

He’s ready when he wakes up the next day. 

“Ninety percent,” Pidge says quietly. 

And the next day. 

“One hundred percent,” Pidge says softly. 

And… the next day. 

And the next? 

“I mean this in the nicest way, Doc,” Shiro says when it’s just the two of them. Keith had snuck a sleeping Melenor away to give them privacy to talk. “But… why am I not dead yet?” 

“I don’t know,” Pidge confesses. “I thought for sure within a few hours the first day…” 

“I know,” Shiro confirms. “I felt it too. All the nanobots are nonfunctional now.”

“How do you feel?” Pidge asks. 

“I don’t know? Weak and woozy, but…” Suddenly jabbing pain, behind Shiro’s eyes. Shiro’s hands come up to cover his face. 

“Shiro? What’s wrong?” Pidge asks sharply, getting to her feet. 

Shiro can’t answer at first, his vision whiting out. 

“ _Goddammit,_ ” Pidge hisses. “It’s an aneurysm behind your occipital lobe, I can’t-” 

“It’s okay,” Shiro croaks. “It’s okay.” 

“It’s not okay!” Pidge bursts. 

The door opens and Keith steps in. “I heard shouting. I left Mel with Lance, are you…” He stops, then drops beside Shiro, cradling him close. 

“This is it,” Shiro tells him. “I’m sorry. I love you.” Everything is grey, white smeared black. Movement and noise. Perhaps Keith says it back. Perhaps he just cries. 

A piercing wail above it all, desperate and drawn out. 

“Get her out of here,” Keith snaps. 

“I _can’t,_ she’s hurting herself, look-” Lance explains in a panicked voice. 

“Here-” Shiro’s arms fall open. A warm familiar weight settles in. 

His vision clears. He blinks slowly, looking at the worried faces surrounding him. His headache recedes. In his lap, Melenor giggles. 

“Wait,” Pidge says, eyes narrowing shrewdly. 

~~

“So what you’re saying is we have a magic baby,” Lance concludes. 

“I mean she’s got like six parents? So yeah.” Hunk points out. 

“And she was born of quintessence and Lion Bond. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that she has abilities we don’t understand.” Keith gently taps Melenor’s nose where she sits contentedly in Shiro’s lap. Melenor’s eyes cross in confusion and he laughs softly. 

“Allura was always a special girl.” Coran sniffs loudly into a handkerchief. “Her daughter would surely be too.” 

“You’re crashing because whatever… quintessence flush? She’s putting you through is purging the serum and the remaining nanobots.” Pidge looks guilty. “If my treatment was less aggressive, you’d be suffering less.” 

“If your treatment was less aggressive, I’d never have made it here,” Shiro points out. “And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.” 

“So she’s not playing favorites,” Lance perks up. “She’s just helping her Daddy Shiro.” 

“You were really worried that the baby didn’t love you,” Hunk says, grinning. “Awww Papi Lance.” 

Lance flushes pink. “Everybody loves me!” He protests. 

“Eventually,” Hunk agrees. “You’re kind of an acquired taste, buddy.”

Lance squawks indignantly as Keith nods in agreement. Even Shiro looks innocently around the room as though he can avoid chiming in if he doesn’t make eye contact. 

“I don’t know,” Pidge says, fiddling with her glasses. “I guess you can be charming, in a goofy kind of way.” 

Lance blinks in astonishment before his expression changes, sliding into a crafty, obnoxious grin. “Did you…? _Seriously?_ ” 

“Shut up,” Pidge says automatically. 

“No way, babe!” Lance leans into her space. “You had a crush on me? Back at the Garrison? That’s so embarrassing!” 

“We’re literally together.” Pidge says flatly. “With our magic alien baby.” She gestures at Melenor who yawns cutely. 

“It’s a little embarrassing,” Hunk corrects her. “I mean do you remember how annoying Lance was back then?” 

“I see no difference,” Keith deadpans, staring at Lance who leers in their general direction. 

“Hey! Come on, now-” 

And Shiro drifts off to the sounds of his family all around him. 

~~

By the time they reach the end of No Man’s Land and slide back into chartable space, Shiro can move around the ship on his own again. He still keeps Melenor close most of the time, but she allows herself to be passed around to the others on occasion as well. She loves to watch Keith train, clapping her chubby hands when he executes a particularly acrobatic feat. She delights in everything she’s fed, from the squishiest Altean space goo to the most exotic custom baby food creations from Hunk. When Melenor is tied into a swaddle around Pidge’s middle, she coos excitedly while Pidge clacks away at her datapad. Lance and Melenor can play for hours- something that Lance chalks up to his natural baby whispering abilities and that everyone else thinks privately might be because Lance has never quite fully grown up himself. 

“We don’t need the paladin bond to stay close,” Shiro had assured Pidge during a heartfelt check in. “We have Mellie now.” 

“Your levels look good- really good. Like _in remission_ good.” Pidge says. “Why don’t I take Mel tonight? Lance and I can take a turn with midnight feedings.” 

“Yeah? Why?” Shiro asks, bemused. “Not that I won’t appreciate the sleep.” 

Pidge coughs delicately with a raised eyebrow. 

~~

So. 

Shiro sits on the edge of the bed, freshly showered and extremely nervous. 

Kosmo had been persuaded to bunk elsewhere for the night- a bucket of custom space wolf treats from Hunk and a few pleading glances. 

Nothing left to do but wait. 

After a few minutes or a few lifetimes, Keith steps into the room, toweling the sweat from his hair after his workout. He’s stripped to the waist and Shiro’s eyes are drawn to the way his torso gleams, each muscle lovingly sweat slicked in the low light. 

Shiro swallows. The sound feels loud in the silent room, and Keith turns to look at him with an easy smile. 

Shiro stands. He’s only wearing a towel. A small towel. 

Keith drops his to the floor. 

“Mel?” Keith asks, voice low. 

“Having a sleepover.” Shiro says lightly. 

“How are you feeling?” Keith asks, and the question feels loaded. 

“Good enough to celebrate,” Shiro answers, hoping his voice isn’t going squeaky. 

Keith stalks across the room until they’re only inches apart. His hands come up but not quite touching- they hover in the air, ghosting along Shiro’s arms, his chest, his waist, his thighs. 

“What am I allowed to do?” Keith asks, voice almost a whisper now. Like if he speaks too loudly, Shiro might change his mind. 

“Love me,” Shiro says, looping his arms around the back of Keith’s neck. Keith leans in for a bruising kiss as his hands flick the tiny towel to the ground. 

~~

They both need a shower, after. 

~~

Later, settled into their bed, fingers tangled lazily in Keith’s long silky hair, Shiro sighs with deep and utter happiness. 

“When we get back, what do you want to do?” Keith asks, face pushed against Shiro’s abs. 

“Eat a stuffed crust pizza,” Shiro says immediately. “Like a whole entire one.” 

Keith laughs. “Good plan, Captain.” 

“M’ not a captain,” he says muzzily. 

“You could be.” Keith rolls over, eyes serious and starlit. “If you wanted to.” 

Shiro gives him a questioning look. 

“I’ve got this ship, see.” Keith says, and although his tone is easygoing, there’s a faint tremor underneath. 

“She’s got a captain,” Shiro points out. 

“Co-captain, then.” Keith amends. 

“Mission parameters?” Shiro requests. 

“Wherever we want. Whatever we want.” Keith presses a kiss to Shiro’s arm where it rests beside his face. 

“I wouldn’t want to leave Mel,” Shiro hedges. 

“We’ll make time. Take her with us, when it’s our turn. Teach her to love the stars the way we do.” Keith’s shed all pretence at coolness now. This is so important to him- so important to give Shiro everything he ever wanted or needed, like it’s an honor for Shiro to even consider it. 

“I love you,” Shiro tells him. And that’s all the yes Keith needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for going on this post s-8 ride. I feel like every Voltron fanauthor has a post canon fix-it fic or two up their sleeves, and this is mine.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments por favor, they make me feel better about life <3


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